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UNITED STATES OP 1 AMERICA. {I 



MODEM STATESMEN, 



SKETCHES FROM THE STRANGERS' GALLERY 



THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 



BY 



i 



J.- EWING RITCHIE, 

AUTHOR OF THE "NIGHT SIDE OF LONDON," "THE LONDON PULPIT,' 
"HERE AND THERE IN LONDON," ETC. ETC. 



" For these are the men that when they hare played their parts, and had their exits, must- 
step out and give the moral of their scenes, and deliver unto posterity an inventory of their 
virtues and vices."— Sir Thomas Browne. 



LONDON: 
WILLIAM TWEEDIE, 337, STRAND. 

MDCCCLXI. 



HA S3 

.2- 
.7?fe 



JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PEINTEKS. 



TO 

JOHN CASSELL, ESQ., 

"THE POPtTLAB, EDTJCATOK," 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, AS A MEMOKIAL OF MANY 

YEAES OF FEIENDSHIP AND LITEEAEY 

CO-OPEEATION. 



Ivy Cottage, Ballard' s-lane, FincJdey. 



MODEKN STATESMEN. 



LORD PALMERSTON. 



This is a great, free, self- governed country. I must be- 
lieve it, for I read it in the newspapers every day. The 
aristocracy tell us this when they condescend to adorn 
our public dinners, and popular lecturers at Mechanics' 
Institutions and Athenaeums repeat it. Our Consti- 
tution is the growth of ages, and has attained a perfec- 
tion of which Hobbes despaired and of which Locke 
never dreamt. The franchise, we are told, is a trust ; 
that trust is placed in the most trustworthy hands. 
(Cato was the original ten-pound householder.) Our 
elections are the envy of surrounding nations. There 
is at them a studious abstinence from beer ; no one is 
solicited for a vote. The great manufacturer, or rail- 
way contractor, or the neighbouring peer, always re- 
tire to the Continent when an election takes place, in 
order that the honest voter may act in accordance 

1 



Z MODERN STATESMEN. 

with the dictates of his conscience. The religious feel 
that it is a solemn event, and sermons appropriate to 
the occasion are preached in chapel and church alike. 
The ablest men of the community, irrespective of their 
wealth or want of it, are selected as candidates. On 
the day of nomination, in the plain garb of citizens — 
without music or flags, or demonstrations of party feel- 
ing — they appear upon the hustings. Their speeches, 
in unadorned but plain language, comment upon the 
men and movements of the day. They declare the 
principles upon which they act, and upon which they 
deem the government of Great Britain and its imperial 
dependencies should be carried on. These speeches, 
with the exception of a few immaculate boroughs, such 
as Gloucester and Wakefield or Berwick upon Tweed, 
are listened to by an audience fresh from the perusal 
of Bacon, Bentham, and Mill. A show of hands then 
takes place. The best man has invariably the majority, 
the others immediately retire, and the constituents, 
satisfied that they have done their duty, return home ; 
the representative, in his turn, becomes a constituent in 
another assembly, where he meets some six hundred 
similarly-minded gentlemen. They select from them- 
selves, in order to form a cabinet, the ablest and wisest. 
These invariably are peers, or sons of peers. They, 
again, select the ablest and wisest as their head. He 
was, till the Crimean war destroyed our European re- 
putation, the first man in the universe, and remotest 
regions learned to bless his name. Happily, in our 



LORD PALMERSTON. 6 

day the system has arrived at a blessed fruition, and 
we have as Premier the Right Honourable Yiscount 
Palmerston, K.G.C.B., a veteran official long before the 
present generation bewailed or rejoiced in long clothes. 
So much for theory, now for actual fact. Is it not 
singular that statesmanship as a rule is the only thing 
monopolised in this country by a class, and that class 
one which has invariably broken down when it has 
come into contact with men without Grandfathers ? 
From the days of the Huntingdon brewer — not for- 
getting him who was emphatically " the Great Com- 
moner " — to those of Gladstone and Disraeli, our chief 
orators and statesmen have sprung from the middle 
ranks. If Fox belonged to the aristocracy, he confessed 
that he owed his noblest aspirations to Burke. If Eng- 
land's rulers accepted the services of Canning, they 
could prey upon his genius and prematurely exhaust 
his life. In our day we see the Earl of Derby honoured 
with the Garter on his retirement from the Premier- 
ship, while the man without whom his party could not 
have remained a day in office leaves it, and retires to 
Haughenden Manor undecorated and without reward. 
There may be great advantages attending this state of 
things, but an evident disadvantage is, that this system 
compels us to accept a kind of Hobson's choice. Hence, 
when Lord John Russell is sent for, and confesses that 
he cannot carry on the Queen's Government, and Lord 
Derby has confessed the same — if Lord Palmerston 
does not condescend to be our saviour, we are plunged 



2 MODERN STATESMEN. 

into the horrors of a parliamentary dead-lock. This is 
the reason of Palmerston's premiership. He is Premier 
just as men are villains by necessity and fools by a 
divine thrusting on. We read in Luther's Table Tal7c, 
" Maximilian one day burst into a great laugh. On 
being asked the cause, * Truly/ he said, ' I laughed to 
think that God should have trusted the spiritual go- 
vernment of the world to a drunken priest like Pope 
Julius, and the government of the empire to a chamois- 
hunter like me.' " We have it in evidence that an idea 
of this kind used to flash through Lord Althorp's hon- 
est brain. In his retirement at Broadlands, Lord Pal- 
merston may indulge in a similar laugh. If we may 
judge from a public life of unusual extent, the last thing 
he aspired to was the Premiership. It was offered him, 
and he could not well refuse it. "No man has less gone 
out of his way to attract or retain the admiration of 
the people than Lord Palmerston. When he upset 
Lord John Russell — and, in the language of the turf, 
began to make a good running— the novelty of the 
idea was quite refreshing. Palmerston Premier ! the 
thought was absurd. Who were his followers ? who 
would march through Coventry with such a ragged 
regiment? What ability, save that of consistently 
sticking to office, had he ever shown ? The clever men 
of a past age — Wilberforce, Plumer Ward, Dean Mil- 
ner, Canning, and others — it is true, always spoke and 
wrote of Palmerston as a man of great promise. In 
the House of Commons, the general opinion was that 



LORD PALMERSTON. 

Palmerston was a mail possibly to be laughed at for 
his juvenile airs, but certainly not to be despised ; but 
the outside multitude — " the people, the only source 
of political power " — had no other idea of Palmerston 
than that he was always in office, that he was one of 
the best horsemen in Europe, and that he bore a sou- 
briquet supposed to indicate an amorous temperament 
and personal charms. Even writing so recently as 
1837, Mr James Grant, in his Random Recollections, 
could say, " Of Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary 
and Member for Tiverton, I have but little to say.- 
The situation he fills in the cabinet gives him a certain 
degree of prominence in the eyes of the country, which 
he certainly does not possess in Parliament. His' 
talents are by no means of a high order. Assuredly 
they would never, by their own natural energy, have 
raised him to a distinguished position in the councils 
of his Sovereign, in which a variety of accidental cir- 
cumstances have placed him. He is an indifferent 
speaker." This monstrous criticism was accepted at 
the time as honest and fair. How little do the public 
know of the men of whom they entertain such decided 
opinions ! Since 1837, Palmerston's career has been a 
continued triumph : he put on the armour just as other 
men are putting it off. As a sexagenarian he descended 1 
into the political arena, and exhibited all the ardour 
and vivacity of a youth. Men were first astonished, 
then enraptured. All England swore by Lord Pal- 
merston. Even the professors of the refined science of 



6 MODERN STATESMEN. 

cookery — the disciples of Ude, Careme, Soyer — caught 
the enthusiasm, and a Palmerston sauce became en vogue. 
In the four quarters of the globe the name of Palmer- 
ston was a tower of strength. There was rejoicing at 
Vienna when Palmerston fell in 1851. In the troubled 
years of 1848-9 a German popular couplet intimated 
that if the devil had a son, that favoured mortal was 
our facetious Premier. (t Suda Palmerston seechas " 
(Hither Palmerston, forthwith!), we are told, was during 
the Crimean war the cry with which the Cossack of 
the Ukraine stilled his steed when restive, or urged it 
on when weary. Nay, more, at dinners at Damascus 
Mr Disraeli makes an Eastern emir pettishly exclaim, 
"I cannot endure this eternal chatter about Palmerston: 
are there no other statesmen in the world besides Pal- 
merston ? " Even on the other side the Atlantic his 
influence is felt. I read in an American paper that 
the recent mad act of Brown and his deluded followers 
at Harper's Ferry was all owing to Lord Palmerston. 
"Well, all this abuse is a confession of Palmerston's 
power, and that is a compliment to the English nation, 
for the Palmerston policy in the eyes of the world re- 
presents English policy, and we love the man who 
makes all the world talk of what England will do and 
dare. But in the man himself there is something else 
which creates and maintains his popularity. In the 
first place, nature has been bountiful to his lordship, 
and has given him length of days ; this is a greater 
advantage in statesmanship than at first sight it ap- 



LORD PALMERSTON. 7 

pears. A man many years engaged in political affairs 
learns much — gets an insight into men and parties — 
quotes precedents and becomes an authority. As he sees 
his contemporaries and rivals one by one snatched away 
by death, there is a clearer stage for himself. Promo- 
tion often in politics goes by seniority. We all speak 
of the Marquis of Lansdowne, for instance, as a politi- 
cal Nestor, yet, if we look back to his ( younger days, 
when he first started in public life, we do not find that 
he made a very great impression then ; then, again, in 
many of the fierce party fights of the last generation, 
Lord Palmerston has been called in to take but a 
secondary part, his department having been more with 
foreign than home politics. He has thus rarely come 
into collision with the passions and prejudices of any 
powerful class ; thus it is that he has had, more than 
once, we believe, in ministerial crises, advances made 
to him by the leaders of the Conservative party ; and 
thus it is that he often receives a large share of Con- 
servative support. Then, again, there is a thorough- 
ness in his way of doing business, which we all like. 
Let him be Home Secretary, let him be Foreign* 
Minister, let him be Premier, he does everything 
thoroughly and to the best of his power. " When 
Lord Granville was in the height of his power," writes 
Horace Walpole, " I one day said to him, ' My lord, 
as you are going to the king, do ask him to make poor 
Clive one of the council. ' He replied, * What is it 
to me who is a judge or who a bishop ? It is my busi- 



8 MODERN STATESMEN. 

ness to make kings and emperors, and to maintain the 
balance of power in Europe/ " Now, Lord Palmerston 
Would never have made such a silly answer. When 
he is at work we soon find out. Whether for work or 
- play, no man can beat his lordship. Is the House of 
Commons determined to waste its time in idle debates, 
to abandon its privileges, to promise everything out-of- 
doors and do nothing in-doors — Lord Palmerston fools 
them to their heart's content. And then there is a 
bonhommie about his lordship which is popular ; a good- 
tempered, jolly man can never be unpopular. This 
was the secret of Lord North's success, and of that of 
a still greater man before him, Sir Robert Walpole. 
It must be confessed my lord has something to laugh at. 
What must he think of popular M.P/s who charge 
him with treason, and yet dare not vote against him 
for fear of damaging the shop ? 

It cannot be that such a one is the nonentity so 
flippantly portrayed by Mr Grant ; the captain of 
shams, described by Mr Bright ; or the arch-traitor 
sold to Russia, as Mr Urquhart will be happy to tell 
you any day. Five years ago the writer, meeting with 
One of the numerous agitators with which the metro- 
polis abounds, requested the enthusiast referred to to 
explain his movements. " Oh," said he, " we are go- 
ing to impeach Palmerston!" We suggested the 
desirability of losing no time if such a course were 
resolved on. "Oh ! " said our informant, " Palmer- 
ston will live ten years longer : Russia calculates that 



LORD PALMERSTON. 9 

he will do so too." Palmerston lives on, but who is 
guilty of the folly of talking of impeaching him now ? 
Voltaire says men succeed less by their talents than 
their character. As an instance, he compares Mazarin 
and De Hetz. In quoting a passage in a letter to 
the Bishop of Llandaff, the late Lord Dudley said, 
" Walpole and Bolingbroke make a similar pair in the 
next century. Castlereagh and Canning are remark- 
able examples of the truth of the maxim which our 
days have furnished." The list might have been ex- 
tended so as to embrace the career of Lord Palmerston. 
Undoubtedly the noble lord's talents are of a high 
order. " We are all proud of him ! " said Sir Robert 
Peel, and the words were caught up and re-echoed all 
over the land ; but it is the character he has acquired 
that has placed him where he is. It would be the 
height of absurdity to deny Lord Palmerston the posses- 
sion of great talent. He has made brilliant speeches ; 
his pro-Catholic orations were republished ; and the 
way in which he put down Julian Harney at Tiver- 
ton tickled every midriff in Great Britain. His five- 
hours' speech in vindication of himself in the House 
of Commons was a masterpiece. A Conservative 
member, walking home that night, said to a literary 
member of Parliament : " I have heard Canning, and 
Plunkett, and Brougham in their best days, and I 
never heard anything to beat that speech." Yet our 
Premier has never scaled the heights of oratory; he 
has never attained . to the utterance of new and preg- 



10 MODERN STATESMEN. 

nant truths ; genius has never thrown around him her 
robe of dazzling light; he has been a dexterous debater, 
skilful at fence, nothing more. Palmerston is but a 
man of the time, while Pitt and Fox, Burke and Can- 
ning, were men for all times. He even ranks below Sir 
Robert Peel, whose speeches are still quoted and occa- 
sionally read. He leaves on you the impression that 
he is adroit ; that he is liberal in profession where 
Austria and Italy are concerned; that he is grand 
at bullying little states; and that it is true of him 
what the first Napoleon said of Providence, that it was 
always on the side that had the strongest legions. 
Glance at his lordship's administrative career, and this 
is manifest. Toryism was popular, and Palmerston 
began life as a Tory ; Reform was popular, and he 
turned Reformer ; war with Russia was popular in 
1855, and he became a furious war-minister. In some 
quarters, lately, people were talking of a further par- 
liamentary reform, and an 'extension of the suffrage, 
and Lord Palmerston, who resigned office rather than 
accede to anything of the kind, condescended to intro- 
duce a comprehensive and satisfactory measure of re- 
form, which comprehensive and satisfactory measure 
was withdrawn quite as readily as it was introduced. 
This readiness to swim with the stream is a great 
thing in a statesman. Indeed, in spite of what men 
may say to the contrary, it is a virtue, if the stream 
flows in a right direction. But this is not the sole 
secret of the Premier's popularity. There is another 



LORD PALMERSTON. 11 

and more potent cause. An anecdote will best illus- 
trate our meaning : — 

Once upon a time two gentlemen went to dine at a 
noble mansion ; on their departure, according to the 
fashion of the age, the servants were ranged in the 
hall waiting with extended palm the expected honora- 
rium. The guest who first departed was seen to pro- 
duce a smile on every countenance as he passed. His 
friend interrogated him as to the cause, " I gave them 
nothing," was the reply. "I merely tickled their 
hands." In a precisely similar manner has Palmer- 
ston tickled Englishmen. Undeniably, John Bull is 
very vain — not of himself, like a Frenchman, but of 
his nation. The Chinese slave, writing to the Lord of 
the Sun and the Brother of the Moon of the encounter 
at Peiho, says, " the barbarians attacked us with 
their usual insolence and audacity." We have a simi- 
lar way of speaking of foreigners. " It is a grand 
country this," exclaims the enthusiastic but grum- 
bling Briton, while he abuses its laws, its customs, its 
institutions, and its climate. Our aged Premier has 
spent nearly half a century in repeating this cry for 
the edification of foreign courts. England has been 
the model which he has asked France, Spain, Portu- 
gal, Austria, Russia, to say nothing of countless smaller 
principalities and powers — no matter the difference of 
religion, of custom, and of race — to imitate and admire. 
If, occasionally, the parties thus addressed have shown 
a little irritation ; if, occasionally, an indiscreet Italian, 



12 MODERN STATESMEN. 

or Polish, or Hungarian patriot, has in consequence 
appealed to the sword, believing that England's arni 
will uphold him in his application of English princi- 
ples ; the fault, of course, is not the noble Yiscount's, 
and the English nation hugs itself into the belief, that 
the dislike and suspicion of foreign courts and peoples 
(for the singularity of the Palmerston, or rather the 
English foreign policy, is, that whilst it is too demo- 
cratic for foreign courts it is too aristocratic for foreign 
peoples) is the measure of their respect and fear. 
Hence the national enthusiasm for Palmerston has 
placed him on the very topmost pinnacle. Abroad the 
cry has been, " Palmerston and Constitutionalism ! " 
at home, " Palmerston and the Vindication of the Na- 
tional Honour ! " John Bull, even now, when an 
adventurer and the son of an adventurer, with an 
audacity almost sublime, has climbed up the steep 
ascent of empire, and with his armed legions bids all 
Europe tremble, flatters himself that England sustains 
to the modern the relation Pome sustained to the an- 
cient world. Under the broad sun of heaven he sees 
no more exalted personage than himself; he insists 
upon his rights in the remotest corner of the globe : in 
the presence of the Pope, whom he deems little better 
than one of the wicked, under the shadow of the gigan- 
tic despot who holds France in his mailed hand, before 
Austrian Kaiser, Russian Czar, Yankee backwoodsman, 
or astonished citizen of Timbuctoo, he exclaims, " Civis 
Romanics sum ! " In his own opinion, it is his proud 



LORD PALMERSTON. 13 

prerogative wherever lie wanders to break all laws, to 
violate all customs, to pour contempt on all prejudices, 
and to run all risks. Now, in such circumstances Pal- 
merston always backs his countrymen, even when, 
like Sir John Bowring, they rush wildly into war ; 
and this mischievous John Bullism we all appreciate 
and admire. Again : under Palmerston's direction 
we settled the succession in Spain and Portugal, drove 
away from Syria Mehemet Ali, and blockaded the 
African coast to put down slavery. People who do 
not examine matters very closely think it a fine thing 
to read what an English fleet has been doing at the 
Tagus, or on the Douro, or on the coast of Africa ; or 
how an English minister has lectured the Bourbons 
and Hapsburgs, or insulted the representatives of the 
great republic of the West, or succeeded in lowering 
the flag of France. That Palmerston has not preci- 
pitated the nation into war, argues not so much his 
discretion as his luck ; but the nation that does not 
see the danger, admires the spirit, and forgets how 
Palmerston suffered Poland to be blotted out, disdain- 
ed to assist Hungary, betrayed Sicily, hastened to con- 
gratulate Napoleon for erecting an iron despotism on 
the ruins of a republic, and twice since he was Premier 
was brow-beaten and bullied by the late idiot King of 
Naples. But, perhaps, the great secret of the popu- 
larity of the Palmerston foreign policy is its utter un- 
intelligibility. Non-interference in what does not 
Goncern us is clearly our duty ; Lord Palmerston ac- 



14 MODERN STATESMEN. 

cepts this, yet lie interferes. "We are not in a position 
to go lecturing, yet Palmerston is never happy unless 
so employed. The Palmerston foreign policy — in 
reality very much like that of Lord Aberdeen, for 
since the time of Canning the policy of the Foreign 
Office has differed but little — has this good about it, 
that it must weary people of sense of secret diplomacy. 
The world will move on, its dark places will be made 
light, its crooked places will be made straight ; but if 
we may judge from the past, not by the manoeuvres of 
diplomacy or the protocols of Lord Palmerston. In 
his home policy the noble Viscount has been more 
successful in producing practical results. Here again 
he has gone at once to the national heart. An English- 
man must be comfortable, or he cannot live. The two 
great ills of life are a smoky chimney and a scolding 
wife. By Act of Parliament, Lord Palmerston has 
forbidden the one and has enabled the wretched victim 
to free himself of the other. This latter Act must al- 
ways remain a proof of the noble Premier's earnest 
activity and perseverance. Night after night he and 
his Attorney-general, Sir Bichard Bethell, had to fight 
the battle alone ; a man of feebler will than Lord 
Palmerston would have given way. When Palmer- 
ston became Home Secretary there was another sore 
evil under the sun : in all our crowded towns popula- 
tion had planted itself most densely in the neighbour- 
hood of the churchyard ; the result was, the living 
were poisoned by the dead. Some of the clergy, fear- 



LORD PALMERSTOX. 15 

ful of losing their vested interests, opposed the removal 
of this fearful nuisance, but Lord Palmerston shut up 
the churchyards as burial-places, and humanity gained 
the day. His few months at the Home Office were very 
beneficial to himself, and paved the way for his Pre- 
miership. The English public had a nearer view of 
their pet Foreign Minister ; no public duty appeared 
to come amiss to him ; he was weighed in the balance, 
nor was he found wanting. In 1855, when the Aber- 
deen cabinet fell, when Lord John Russell had covered 
himself with odium by his desertion of the sinking 
ship, all eyes were directed to Lord Palmerston. He 
was the only possible Premier, and would have re- 
mained so had not the Conservatives caught him trip- 
ping on the Foreign Conspiracy Bill, and, with the 
aid of Milner Gibson, defeated a measure which other- 
wise most probably would have had their support. It 
must be also confessed, Palmerston required a rebuff. 
Like Jeshurun of old, he waxed fat and kicked ; there 
was something approaching to insolence in his treat- 
ment of the House of Commons. 

Lord Palmerston's chief merit is his cheerful honesty. 
He has made no pretensions to virtue. The Record 
intimated that he was the man of God because he 
made low Churchmen bishops, but Lord Palmerston 
himself never laid claim to so sacred a character. He 
has paid remarkably little deference to an enlightened 
British public. The lover must blame not his mistress, 
but himself, when he finds the idol of his fancy plain 



16 MODERN STATESMEN. 

and commonplace. Beery readers of newspapers must 
not complain that their model statesman once resigned 
office rather than give them votes. The British public 
dearly love a lord that will take the chair at Exeter 
Hall. Lord Palmerston began life as Cupid — does not 
think children tainted with original sin — dared to tell 
the Scottish clergy that they had better wash than fast 
to keep off the cholera — was never on the platform at 
Exeter Hall : yet is he popular. "With the exception 
of once presiding at the distribution of prizes at the 
University College, London, and a visit to Manchester, 
he has studiously avoided the arts by which small men 
become great. The last American traveller who has 
published a book on us, Mr Field, writes : " An 
American can hardly believe his senses when he sees 
the abasement of soul which seizes the middle classes 
in the presence of a lord. They look up to him as a 
superior being, with a reverence approaching to awe." 
There is some truth in this : it is to the credit of Lord 
Palmerston that he has traded as little on this feeling 
as it was possible for any man to do. 

Come and see Palmerston the Statesman. That is 
he — that old gentleman in the middle of the Treasury 
bench of the House of Commons, with hat pulled down 
tightly over his eyes, arms across his breast, and one ' 
leg thrown over the other. Is not he in a capital state 
of preservation, with nothing to hurt him but now and 
then a twinge of his old enemy, the gout — a souvenir of 
jollier years ? A wonderful old man, truly ; still erect 



LORD PALMERSTON. 17 

on horseback as ever youthful knight wending his way 
to lady's bower. Dr Johnson said of dancing dogs, 
"the wonder is, not that they dance so well, but that 
they dance at all ;" so with Lord Palmerston, the won- 
der is, not that he rules the country so well, but that 
he does it at all, when most men would be in a state of 
idiotic decay. It says something for the goodness of 
his lordship's constitution — something for the light 
character of his labours as a statesman of half a century, 
and something for the Eomsey air and his lordship's 
medical attendants. But mark ! he is on his legs, 
with all the briskness of a four-year-old. His pertness 
is quite juvenile. How neat and effective is his retort, 
and yet how little there is in it ! Disraeli said Sir 
Robert Peel played on the House as an old fiddle, 
Palmerston does the same. His birth, his office, his 
experience — all make him feel at home in it ; and when 
he sits down there is a Jaugh, and the questioner, 
somehow or other, feels he has done something very 
foolish, though he scarce knows what. Your expecta- 
tions are heightened. Yery naturally you imagine that 
as the evening passes on, and the excitement deepens, 
his lordship, in a corresponding manner, will become 
earnest, and passionate, and overpowering. Wait a 
little while, and you will find out your mistake. 
There is the same pertness and levity ; the same eager- 
ness to evade the question by a joke ; the same skilful 
dodging ; and the same artful adaptation of his speech, 
not to the conscience or convictions of the public, but 

2 



18 MODERN STATESMEN. 

to the prejudices, and knowledge, and interests of the 
House. l$o one so disappoints the eager stranger as 
Lord Palmerston. His hollow feeble voice — his in- 
tolerable haw-hawing — his air of hauteur and flippancy, 
all combine to dispel the illusion which, in a manner 
most wonderful, his lordship has contrived to gather 
around his name. 

" Life is a jest, and all tilings show it ; 
I thought so once, and now I know it," 

will be an appropriate epitaph wherewith to deck the 
marble monument that the grateful nation shall erect 
when death shall have torn the wily Premier from the 
doctor's care. Lord Palmerston, with one memorable 
exception, never speaks long : he is down almost as 
soon as he is up, he seldom rises above the level of 
after-dinner oratory ; and as you watch his lordship 
out of the House at one p.m., at the close of a debate 
which has tried his lordship's mettle and damaged the 
handiwork of his lordship's valet, the shambling old 
gentleman, leaning on a friendly arm, does not seem 
quite the prodigy in your eyes which the admirably 
made-up nobleman did, who stepped out of his carriage 
just as you reached Westminster Hall. 



II. 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 

On the first of July, 1819, Sir Francis Burdett, for 
the eighteenth, time, made his annual motion on the 
question of parliamentary reform. All that he pro- 
posed was that the House should pledge itself to take 
the state of the representation into its most serious 
consideration early in the next session of parliament. 
On the discussion there appeared 58 members with Sir 
Francis against 153. Amongst the majority was found 
the name of Lord John Russell, who, though admit- 
ting the propriety of disfranchising such boroughs as 
were notoriously corrupt, could not support a motion 
that went the length of proposing an inquiry into the 
general state of the representation, because such an 
inquiry was calculated to throw a slur upon the repre- 
sentation of the country, and to fill the minds of the 
people with vague and indefinite alarms. In a few 
years after this noted speech, Lord John Russell was 
at the head of the reforming party in this country, and 



20 MODERN STATESMEN. 

there was a general impression gone forth that a grate- 
ful nation would elect him dictator for life. Since 
then he has been said more than once to have politi- 
cally extinguished himself — a phrase used by thought- 
less writers, who forget that you cannot extinguish a 
certain amount of territory in a territorial system of 
government. At the present time his lordship is not 
decidedly unpopular, and as Secretary for Foreign 
Affairs, coming after the Earl of Malmesbury, and re- 
presenting English sympathy with the cause of Italian 
nationality, has a fair chance of becoming, in some 
quarters, a popular man again. 

How has Lord John Russell sunk so low ? The in- 
quiry is not uninteresting. In the first place, we 
think the essential aristocratic nature of the man has 
something to do with it. To be genial is to be popular. 
Lord John Russell cannot be genial. There is an icy 
tone in his voice and glitter in his eye ; you may work 
for him — you may write for him — you may convass 
for him — you may shout his praises till you are hoarse 
— and from his lordship you get civil acknowledg- 
ment, scarcely that. It is true his lordship is a liberal 
statesman, but in much the same manner as the Spar- 
tan Ephor, who, when charged by his wife with having 
abandoned half the privileges of his children, replied 
that he had done so in order that he might preserve 
for them the other half. Lord John Russell was born 
a political reformer — just as he is a Protestant. It 
would never do for the inmates of Woburn Abbey to be 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 21 

catholicised, and no name is so sacred to the Whigs as 
that of Russell. Then, again, his lordship has made 
grievous blunders — has alienated his friends, and given 
encouragement to his foes. Then, again, the days of 
strong government, and of the sway of individuals, is 
gone by. We have leaders, but where are the led ? We 
have officers, but where are the rank and file ? It is 
true Pitt had a majority to his mind. It is true the 
way in which the country gentlemen, and rotten borough 
proprietors and representatives, followed that jolly old 
model Whig, Sir Robert Walpole, into the lobby of the 
House of Commons, was enough to remind a certain 
gentleman, who shall be nameless, 

" How Noah and his creeping things 
Went up into the Ark." 

It is true that Sir Robert Peel, like a Colossus, bestrode 
the Protectionist Squires, whom he changed into Free- 
traders ; but these men belong to the past. Men have 
lost confidence in the judgment and tactics and wisdom 
of those whom they were wont to call their leaders. 
The individual allegiance to party of which our fathers 
boasted, exists no longer. Every man does that which 
is right in his own eyes. It was not so when his 
lordship served his political apprenticeship. Then, as 
the scion of the great Whig Duke, Lord John Russell 
had a right to expect public patronage and support, 
and he got it. The stage was clear ; all that was requi- 
site was a certain amount of industry. Everywhere the 



22 MODERN STATESMEN. 

fable of the tortoise and the hare is realized, but no- 
where more so than in the House of Commons. To a 
friend entering Parliament, Wilberforce said, " Attend 
to business, and do not seek occasions of display. If 
you have a turn for speaking, the proper time will come. 
Let speaking take care of itself. I never go out of the 
way to speak, but make myself acquainted with the 
business, and then if the debate passes my door, I step 
out and join it." We have a similar advice from a still 
greater man. When Sir George Murray attempted to 
excuse himself from taking office under the Duke of 
Wellington, on account of his inexperience in public 
speaking, " Pho, pho ! " said the Duke, " do as I do — 
say what you think, and don't quote Latin." In ac- 
cordance with the advice of these men, did Lord John 
Russell commence his political career. Had he acted 
more closely in accordance with it his career would 
have been more successful. But when a second-rate 
man attempts the part of a first-rate man, we all know 
what must be the result. It is not then difficult to ac- 
count for the occasional decline in popularity of Lord 
John Russell. It is a slander on the public to impute 
it to the fickleness of the people. The people are prone 
to idolatry, and a lord on the liberal side is irresistible. 
Any electioneering agent will tell you it is almost im- 
possible to beat such a man. Lord John Russell espe- 
cially has little reason to complain ; the public have 
borne with him in the most patient manner; they have 
picked him out of the mud ; they have washed him, 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 23 

and put clean things on him ; they have patted him on 
the head, and bidden him be a good boy and try again. 
They have repeated these interesting processes over 
and over again ; they have forgiven him seven times, 
and seem about to do so seventy times seven ; yet Lord 
John is rarely popular. Indeed, it may be almost 
hinted that the whole career of England's constitutional 
and heroic statesman has been a mistake. Lord John 
is by birth the son of one duke and the brother of 
another. In his youth he associated with the Edinburgh 
Reviewers, and learnt the quantum sufficit of Liberal 
slang. He has been an unfortunate man through life 
— always hard up — always out of luck. He wrote a 
novel that did not sell — a history that no one would 
read. His philosophy was equally worthless, and his 
poetry — he wrote a drama — was (the word is harsh, 
but we really can find no other so fitting) — his poetry 
was positively damned. Thus abhorred by gods and 
men, he became a politician, and had a finger in that 
dainty dish, the Reform Bill, by which the people of 
England were deluded and deceived. The only thing 
that can be said of him positively is, that, as it may be 
said of the great Bedford Flat, he has the questionable 
merit of being connected with the Bedford family. He 
belongs to the people as Johnson's friend, Campbell, 
belonged to the Church. " Campbell," said Johnson, 
" is a good man, a very good man. I fear he has not 
been inside of a church for many years, but he never 
passes one without taking his hat off. That shows, at 



24 MODERN STATESMEN. 

least, that tie has good principles." Lord John omits 
no opportunity of professing proper attachment to the 
people, whilst the whole course of his political life makes 
that profession doubtful. He serves them in the same 
way as that in which Scrub serves the ladies in the farce 
when commissioned by them to obtain information as 
to the stranger they had seen at church. He tells them 
he has a whole packet of news. " In the first place," 
says he, <f I inquired who the gentleman was ? They 
told me he was a stranger. Secondly, I asked what the 
gentleman was ? They answered and said, that they 
never saw him before. Thirdly, I inquired what coun- 
tryman he was ? They replied, 'twas more than they 
knew. Fourthly, I demanded whence he came ? Their 
answer was, they could not tell. And fifthly, I asked 
whither he went ? and they replied, they knew nothing 
of the matter." To the people, thus clamorous to re- 
form, Lord John gives as much welcome intelligence 
as Scrub did to the ladies. He has a whole packet of 
reform and retrenchment, if they will but wait ; but it 
is not meant for use. It is never ready when it is 
wanted. He is a Whig, a Eeformer, a friend of the 
people, an advocate of progress. He does not deny but 
that further reforms might be made — he is very indig- 
nant at being suspected of finality ; yet somehow or 
other, it does happen that every attempt made in 
that direction meets with the most unscrupulous op- 
position of Lord John and the party whom he repre- 
sents. He does not think much of Mr Cobden's 



LORD JOHX RUSSELL. 25 

plea for retrenchment, and arbitration instead of 
war. He has but a poor opinion of the ballot, he 
scornfully eschews household suffrage, and the five 
points he cannot abide. Now Lord John's presence in 
the Cabinet is said to be a guarantee for the carrying 
of a Reform Bill. As usual, Lord John is much too 
late. He would be a party to no reform when Hume 
and the rest were urging him to move with the times, 
and now the people have been so often duped and dis- 
appointed by promises of a Eeform Bill, that it really 
seems as if they were becoming apathetic in the 
matter. 

Again, through a long parliamentary life, Lord John 
has been little and spiteful, and troublesome in oppo- 
sition. In his diary, Tom Moore wrote of his lordship, 
that " he was mild and sensible" on a particular occa- 
sion, but sometimes his lordship has been neither the 
one nor the other. Moore regretted that Lord John 
Russell " showed so little to advantage in society from 
his extreme taciturnity, and still more from his appar- 
ent coldness and indifference to what was said to him." 
This coolness and indifference, combined with no small 
opinion of himself, has often led his lordship into con- 
duct which has made him very unpopular. When in 
this state, and expelled from office, he has not had 
strength of mind sufficient to lead him calmly to wait 
till the nation has called him back to the helm of state, 
but he has tried all sorts of contemptible manoeuvres. 
Never can we forget the appropriation clause which he 



26 MODERN STATESMEN. 

carried to unseat Sir Robert Peel, and then abandoned 
when in power. Lord John called " the repeal of the 
corn laws mischievous, absurd, impracticable, and un- 
necessary ;" yet his Edinburgh letter in favour of their 
abolition was hastily written and published when he 
found that his great rival, Sir Robert Peel, was about 
to take steps in the direction of Free Trade. In his 
opposition to the budget of Sir Robert Peel, it is ques- 
tionable whether the force of meanness could further go. 
Then what a mischievous attempt, on his lordship's 
part, to acquire popularity was the Durham Letter, and 
how fatal the rebound. Lord John's " spirited letter " 
certainly led the nation to open its eyes. That a Min- 
ister who had long been suspected of designing to en- 
dow the Roman Catholic Church should have written 
such a letter* was very surprising ; but that after 
writing that letter he should have cooled down ; that 
after roaring like a lion he should have aggravated his 
voice and roared like a nightingale, was more surpris- 
ing still. The old adage of " much cry and little wool '* 
was never more ludicrously realized. In the name of 
the prophet, exclaimed his lordship, with pompous strut 
and voice, — In the name of the prophet — figs! The 
contrast between his letter and his legislation — between 
his speech and his bill — was as wide as that between 
Philip drunk and Philip sober ; or as that between 

" Sappho at her toilet's greasy task, 
"With Sappho fragrant at an evening mask." 

If Popery be what Lord John said in his speech it 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 27 

was — if it be a curse in every country in which it ex- 
ists ; and if legislation can grapple with it, — then the 
bill was delusive, and a mockery. Lord John, in his 
speech, complained of synodical action. The bill left 
that untouched. The greatest condemnation of Lord 
John's bill was Lord John's speech. Disraeli could say 
nothing stronger against it than what his lordship him- 
self implied. The truth was, to gain a little transient 
popularity, or to draw off public attention from the 
growing cry for further Financial and Parliamentary 
Reform, the First Minister of the Crown stooped to a 
line of conduct of which the veriest demagogue might 
have been ashamed. An intense anti- Catholic feeling 
was aroused. From almost every county and town — 
from almost every sect and class — petitions went forth 
expressing burning indignation at the foolish aggres- 
sion of the Pope. To whatever an Englishman is in- 
different, he is not to the growth of the power which in 
time past lit up the fires of Smithfield, or the auto da 
fe^s of Goa and Madrid, or which, even at the present 
day, condemns to the degradation of the jail the lover 
of his country and his kind. Under the influence of 
that feeling, men steeped in everlasting infamy — such 
as Titus Oates, or Sacheverell, or Lord George Grordon 
— have strutted on the stage the heroes of an hour. A 
wise Minister would have paused ere that feeling was 
rashly excited. A wise Minister would have consider- 
ed his power of controlling the storm ere he had bid- 
den it ride forth. A wise Minister, before he put him- 



28 MODERN STATESMEN. 

self in collision with a system, the influence of which 
exists in every land, would have kept for himself a 
way of coming out of the strife victorious. Lord John 
Russell signally failed in doing this. All that he did 
by his bill was to proclaim a weakness it had been easy 
to conceal, and to put in bolder relief the magnitude 
of Papal pretences and the littleness of Ministerial le- 
gislation. His letter was a sham. He but touched upon 
the surface of the evil, and that in a manner not diffi- 
cult to evade. In all its intensity, the evil remains the 
same. " With our pleasant vices we make the whips 
with which we scourge ourselves." That Ecclesiasti- 
cal Title Bill sealed Lord John's career as Premier. 
To retain office he had to descend from that lofty po- 
sition. Under the Aberdeen Administration he com- 
mitted a similar mistake. A public system had broken 
down ; a magnificent army had wasted away. By 
many an English fireside was it told how in that win- 
ter there had been, far away, a tragedy done unequal- 
led in the worst days of official mismanagement, as 
criminal as any of the Walcheren and other forlorn ef- 
forts of the past. From one end of England to the 
other, wherever man met man, whether in the haunts 
of fashion or of business, whether at home or abroad, 
there were curses uttered, deep and loud, against the 
men responsible for these disasters. Parliament met ; 
it was known that the first thing required would be 
the appointment of the Sebastopol Committee. Of 
course that was a vote of censure on the existing ad- 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 29 

ministration ; but instead of calmly awaiting the vote, 
and endeavouring to defend himself and his colleagues, 
Lord J ohn had the littleness to abandon his post, and 
to cast stones at the men with whom he had sat at the 
council-board. Again, in his haste to appear before the 
world, he rushed to Vienna, there still further to be duped 
and rendered ridiculous. That his lordship, as he grows 
older, does not grow wiser, is clear from his having had 
recourse to his old tactics only the session of parliament 
before the last. Reform was a matter of such vital 
importance that it could not be trusted in the hands of 
the Derby Cabinet ; only Lord John Russell could deal 
with such a delicate subject. Lord John moved his me- 
morable resolutions. Lords Palmerston and Russell 
forgot their ancient feuds and swore eternal friendship ; 
the liberal rank and file followed suit ; the Derby ad- 
ministration was rejected ; and as a practical result, 
reform was delayed — may I write insecula seculorum? 
It may be asked, is his lordship's oratory of so fas- 
cinating a character as for a time to render the House 
of Commons blind to his many faults ? By no means. 
Look at him marching into the lobby — frigid, dwarfed, 
and self-complacent. For such a man there can be 
no real enthusiasm on the part of those who know him. 
See him in the House — always equally cold and chill- 
ing, and civil to all around. Follow him to the plat- 
form and the hustings, he is the same repellant, unat- 
tractive Whig. But he has lived for the House of 
Commons, and the House is not ungrateful. To Lord 



30 MODERN STATESMEN. 

John also is due the merit of having led the House 
efficiently in time past. In this respect his tact was 
only equalled by that of his great rival, Sir Robert 
Peel ; and in knowledge of forms and precedents by 
many he was considered the superior of that distin- 
guished man. There was really something grand in 
the aspect of the House under his leadership. It was 
a remarkable instance of the triumph of mind over 
matter. In a crowded House, at the close of a heated 
debate, you would see the smallest man in the House 
advance to the table, and the noise of the House, and 
the murmur of many voices, was hushed and still ; the 
opposition became attentive ; strangers would lean 
forward their heads ; peers and diplomatists would 
hearken. Seemingly careless and slovenly, the speech 
would be found to contain the right amount of liberal- 
ism to go down with the back benches ; parts would 
be elaborately polished, and sparkle with a quiet 
irony which the audience would not be slow to appre- 
ciate, nor reluctant to apply. 

Lord John has much to contend with. His outward 
form is frail and weakly ; his countenance sicklied over 
with the effects of solitary communing ; his figure 
shrunk below the ordinary dimensions of humanity ; 
his general air that of a meditative invalid. But with- 
in that feeble body is a spirit that knows not how to 
cower, an undaunted heart, an aspiring soul. His 
voice is weak, his accent drawling and provincial, his 
elocution broken, stammering, and uncertain, save in a 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 31 

few lucky moments, when his tongue seems unloosed, 
when he becomes logical, eloquent, and terse. Then is 
his right hand convulsively clenched, his head proudly 
thrown back, the outline of his face becomes rigid, and 
his dwarfed figure expands as if he were a giant. Lord 
John is sometimes very happy, as when, in his letter 
to the electors of Stroud, he declared that "the whisper 
of a faction shall not prevail against the voice of a 
nation ;" or when, in answer to Sir Francis Burdett, 
who charged him with the cant of patriotism, he told 
the baronet there was also such a thing as the recant of 
patriotism. One of Lord John's most celebrated speeches 
is that known as the Aladdin Lamp Speech, delivered 
by his lordship in 1819, and which Sir Robert Peel 
read to the House during the debate on the Reform 
Bill, in 1831. "Old Sarum," said Lord John, " exist- 
ed when Somers and the great men of the revolution 
established our government. Rutland sent as many 
members as Yorkshire, when Hampden lost his life in 
defence of the constitution. If we should change the 
principles of our constitution, we should commit the 
folly of the servant in the story of Aladdin, who was de- 
ceived by the cry of ' New lamps for old ! ' Our lamp 
is covered with dust and rubbish, but it has a magical 
power ; it has raised up a smiling land, not bestrode with 
overgrown palaces, but covered with modest dwellings, 
every one of which contains a freeman enjoying equal 
protection with the proudest subject in the land. It 
has called into life all the busy creations of commercial 



32 MODERN STATESMEN. 

prosperity. Nor, when men were to defend and illustrate 
their country, have such men been deficient. When 
the fate of the nation depended on the line of policy 
which she should adopt, there were orators of the high- 
est degree placing in the strongest light the arguments 
for peace or war. When we decided upon war, we had 
nerves to gain us laurels in the field and wield our thun- 
ders in the sea. When again we returned to peace — 
the questions of internal policy, of education of the poor, 
of criminal law, found men ready to devote the most 
splendid of abilities to the well-being of the community. 
And shall we change an instrument, that has produced 
effects so wonderful, for a burnished and tinsel toy of 
modern manufacture ? No; small as the remaining trea- 
sure of the constitution is, I cannot consent to throw it 
into the wheel for the chance of obtaining a prize in the 
lottery of revolution." Let me add, that in debate 
Lord John is always a gentleman ; not merely are his 
sentences and phrases indicative of polish and refine- 
ment, but he is always courteous, never flippant, like 
Lord Palmerston, nor savage, like Mr Disraeli. 

We are standing in the lobby of the House of Com- 
mons, watching the members enter. We have watched 
the flowing stream, it may be half an hour, when a 
small, neat figure passes by. Every one looks at 
him, and you do the same, when you hear it whis- 
pered, " That is Lord John Russell. " His lordship 
is elderly, he has had a seat in the House of Com- 
mons since 1813 ; but he shows few signs of age, 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 33 

He is one of England's chiefs ; and by his lofty bear- 
ing, and the sparkle in his eye, you would fancy he 
is quite aware of the fact. Reaumur, in his book on 
"England," describes his lordship: "A little man, 
with a refined and intelligent though not imposing air." 
A malicious Quarterly Reviewer, in a voluntary trans- 
lation of the same passage, rendered it, " A little, sharp, 
cunning-looking man, with nothing of an imposing 
presence." I think both are wrong. Lord John 
Russell looks the aristocrat as much as any man I have 
seen. Up in the strangers' gallery, however, you lose 
this appearance, on account of the distance at which 
you are placed from his lordship. It is true he is seated 
on the Treasury Bench ; but he sits with his chin 
buried in his bosom, his head buried in his hat, and all 
that you can really see, as he sits cross-legged, and with 
his arms across his breast, are his diminutive extremi- 
ties. See, he rises to address the House. Slowly he 
lifts off his hat, advances to the table, crosses his arms, 
and, in a brogue somewhat provincial, and not very 
musical, says " Mr Speaker." All at once the Babel 
of conversation, the shuffling, coughing, laughing, and 
talking, is a little hushed. He commences ; it is an 
important question he has to answer, or an important 
declaration he has to make, and you may hear a pin drop. 
You hear a weak voice hammering and stammering at 
every four or five sentences, those sentences often most 
slovenly and inelegant in construction, and, at first, 
you wonder how a man, without figure, voice, delivery, 

3 



34 MODERN STATESMEN. 

or fluency, could become the leading orator of the 
House of Commons ; but, as he goes on — as he court- 
eously replies to one, and administers a sly sarcasm 
to another — as his little frame dilates, and his eye 
sparkles — as he warms, and the House with him, you 
will feel that the little man has more in him than at 
first appeared. Read the speech next morning, and 
you will find how closely to the point it was — how 
exactly calculated to the occasion — how it suited the 
atmosphere of the House, and then you must remem- 
ber how cool and unruffled was the speaker, and what 
tact he displayed. In these latter respects Lord John 
has greatly shone, and has evinced a smartness of 
which you would not suspect him as you listen to his 
drawling tones, and witness his slovenly delivery. 

In one of his numerous works, Lord John Russell 
says that the House of Commons, while it admires a 
man of genius, always gives its confidence to a man of 
character. It is on his character that Lord John takes 
his stand. Character, as we all know, is one of the 
most delusive phrases in the English language ; one 
man may steal a sheep, while another may not look 
over a wall. Half the scoundrels that are tried at the 
Old Bailey were, like Redpath, and Sir John Paul, and 
others, men of good character. A good character is the 
dernier resort of a man who has little or nothing else 
to recommend him. And Lord John Russell certainly 
has made no little capital out of his character, and 
that of the great family to whose history he adds an- 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 35 

other very interesting page. Herein is Lord John 
Russell's speciality. He takes his stand upon his cha- 
racter. He had a good character twenty or thirty years 
ago, and he reaps the benefit of it at this moment. "So 
long as your father sticks to that ugly wife of his, and 
goes regularly to church," said Erskine to the Prince 
of Wales, " he will always be popular;" and Lord John 
has gained much, of his popularity in a similar way. 
What a man he is for public meetings ! How familiar 
are Exeter Hall, and the Freemasons' Tavern, and the 
City of London Tavern, with his name. How amusing 
is that account Mrs Stowe gives of her visit to his 
lordship at Pembroke Lodge. " We were received," 
she writes, " in the drawing-room by the young ladies. 
Two charming little boys came in, and a few moments 
after their father, Lord John. I had been much pleased 
with finding on the centre table a beautiful edition of 
the revered friend of my childhood, Dr Watts's Songs, 
finely illustrated. I remarked to Lord John that it 
was the face of an old friend. He said it was presented 
to his little boys by their godfather, Sir George Grey. 
And when, taking one of these little boys on his knee, 
he asked him if he could repeat me one of his hymns, 
the whole thing seemed so New England-like that I 
began to feel myself quite at home." 

" Private vices," says Mandeville, " are frequently 
public benefits." Is not the converse true, and are not 
private virtues public mischiefs ? " George the Third s 
constancy to his wife and his shoulder of mutton," 

3 * 



36 MODERN STATESMEN". 

wrote Albany Fonblanque, in the palmy days of the 
Examiner, " his taste for regularity and simplicity, 
enabled him to plunge us into wasting, unjust, and un- 
necessary wars. Had he kept various concubines, and 
dined off French dishes at nine o'clock, the people 
would have had a lively perception of the depravity 
of his politics, and an intimate persuasion of their 
wrongs." 

I confess that, to myself, Lord John Russell seems 
more an historical than a real flesh and blood at this 
day existing man. His was a name dear to the nation, 
and always received with delight, when the men and 
women of to-day played with dolls and marbles, and 
feasted on indigestible pastry. I remember well the 
almost idolatrous veneration with which he was wor- 
shipped by reformers, and that large and influential 
class, the Protestant Dissenters, whose unrighteous 
shackles, by means of the abolition of the Test and 
Corporation Acts, he had been the means of removing. 
In that era, Lord John was deemed the champion of 
what was much talked of then, civil and religious 
liberty all the world over. 

" "We have changed (for worse or better ?) 
Since the time of Charlemagne." 

And I have lived to see the House of Commons grow 
restive under his leadership, his followers diminished, 
and the country, if not weary of, at any rate very in- 
different to, the man. I fear gratitude can never be a 
permanent state of the mind, unless, as in O'Connell's 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 37 

acceptation of the terra, a sense of thankfulness for 
favours to come ; or rather, that the law of humanity 
is, that when a man has done his work and taken his 
wages, he should trouble ns no more. It is not the 
individual that makes revolutions. The age makes 
them, and merely honours an individual as an agent. 
We should have had Parliamentary Reform had Lord 
John Russell never lived ; and the Test and Corpora- 
tion Acts, and the Slave Trade, would have been swept 
away in a similar manner. These changes are made 
when the time for them has arrived. The statesman 
who carries them is in reality carried by them. He is 
merely the servant of the public, and translates, with 
legislative enactment, the wants, and wishes, and con- 
victions of the age. Had Lord John Eussell realized 
this truth, he would never have lost himself by talking 
of finality, as if in this world of eternal change finality 
could be predicated of any one thing. Mors jamia vitas, 
death is the gate to life, is true in politics ; reform is 
a never-ending process. The old Whig view is differ- 
ent. It is the man who covers the land with plenty — 
who removes evil — who admits the pro/anum valgus to 
a limited suffrage, and who reaps his reward in the 
blessings of ages yet to come. But to any man who 
looks at the core of things, who seeks to know the 
causes of what may seem revolutionary changes, and 
who remembers the influence of an oligarchy, it is clear 
that if Lord John had never lived, some other scion of 
the noble house of Bedford would have done that which 



38 MODERN STATESMEN. 

he has done, and, if of equal industry and devotion to 
public life, would have formed as material a part of a 
liberal cabinet. The conclusion, if not flattering to 
his lordship, is very much so to his lordship's order, 
and especially to his family, indicating, as it does, the 
rigidity and fixedness of what is called a popular 
system of government. 

Tennyson makes Ulysses say, 

" Old age hath yet his honour and his toil." 
Similar language might be put into the mouth of Lord 
John Russell. He is full of what may be termed 
House of Commons knowledge. If his lordship has 
been ambitious, his has been no mean or contemptible 
ambition. His aspirations have all been of an ancient 
and heroic mould. He carries us back to the great 
days of Parliamentary eloquence. His principles were 
formed, and his habits acquired, and his style fashion- 
ed, on principles and persons now no longer known. 
He has still around him some of the lustre acquired by 
contact with the immortals. Mournfully he may ex- 
claim, as he reviews his diminished prestige and fading 
power, 

w Much have I seen and known ; cities of men, 
And manners, climates, councils, governments, 
Myself not least, but honoured of them all, 
And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.' ' 

In the decline of his lordship's reputation there is 
reason for national regret. "When he trips and falls, 
the feeling created is one of sorrow and vexation. 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 39 

Lord Sydenham declared that his lordship was " the 
noblest man he had ever the good fortune to know ; " 
and through the old hosts he led to victory the states- 
men who were proud to call themselves his followers — 
the public speakers and active politicians in our chief 
towns and cities, who stood by his side on many a plat- 
form, are gone never to return. We wistfully gaze still 
on the pluck and ambition and varied fortunes of his 
lordship. The nation cannot but sympathize in his 
lordship's decline and fall. There was a time when 
manners and fashions were more courtly and dignified 
than at present ; when gentlemen wore wigs and 
knee-breeches ; when ladies did not dance the polka ; 
when fathers and sons addressed each other in the most 
distressingly respectful language. Lord John, in poli- 
tical life, retains something of this grand air, which 
always tells, just as what the actors say about a man 
who lays hands on a woman is a brute, is approved by 
the gods, who return home and whop their wives with 
a double gusto after cheering so virtuous a sentiment. 
In his character of a Roman Senator Lord John is al- 
ways successful. The strangers in the gallery are al- 
ways delighted, and no wonder, for then the little 
figure draws itself up to its full height; the eye 
glistens ; the husky voice becomes animated and tre- 
mulous with emotion ; his lordship looks boldly round 
on admiring back benches, defiantly to the well-filled 
ranks of opposition in front, and you would swear that 
he was at least six feet high. 



III. 



RICHARD COBDEN, M.P. 

Fob, a few years previous to the Crimean war, when 
the public in general believed that white-robed peace 
had taken up an eternal residence among the sons of 
men, the name of Richard Cobden was one everywhere 
received with respect. Sir Robert Peel had testified to 
the power of his " unadorned eloquence." The ex- 
asperation of rosy-cheeked country squires, not gifted 
with great oratorical powers, had subsided almost into 
a calm as they found that the alteration of the Corn- 
Laws had impaired neither their influence nor their 
wealth. The manufacturing interests had, in a sub- 
stantial manner, by a subscription of £80,000, testified 
their value of Mr Cobden's services. The hero of the 
Anti- Corn-Law League, the opponent of the Taxes on 
Knowledge, the champion of the ballot, the Coryphaeus 
of the Peace party, the decus et tutamen of the Free- 
hold Land Societies, had only to show himself to his 
countrymen to be regaled with the most vehement ap- 



RICHARD COBDEN, M.P. 41 

plause. In Exeter Hall, in St Martin's Hall, at the 
Freemason's Tavern, at the City of London Tavern, at 
the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, — in short, in all 
the haunts and homes of popular agitation, honours 
were plentifully showered on the man who had com- 
menced his political career as an obscure Manchester 
cotton dealer ; who, by his wonderful tact, had won 
from a hostile senate the triumph of Free Trade, and 
whose very name was received on the continent as 
the embodiment — politically speaking — of English 
thought and feeling. A plain citizen never achieved 
a higher pinnacle of greatness. A revolution in its 
consequences, even at this distance of time not to be 
over-estimated, and as yet but partially developed, had 
been effected mainly by his agency. In old Rome, 
when Tiberius Gracchus headed a movement against 
the landed aristocracy, the result was a sudden and 
bloody death. In modern England the popular tri- 
bune meets with a happier fate. But this popularity 
was too great to last. When the Russian war broke 
out, Mr Cobden's protest against it lowered him in 
public estimation. His conduct in the Chinese affair 
— when an old ally, Sir John Bowring, was condemn- 
ed unheard — rendered him still more unpopular ; and 
the clever appeal of Lord Palmerston to the country 
for awhile sent Mr Cobden, politically speaking, to 
Coventry. It is a long lane that knows no turning. 
If Englishmen are ungrateful it is only for a season. 
When the passions and prejudices of the hour had 



42 MODERN STATESMEN. 

passed, men of all opinions felt that, Cobden not in 
Parliament, that assembly was deprived of some por- 
tion of its lustre. To the honour of Rochdale be it said, 
that was the borough that, at the earliest opportunity, 
returned Mr Cobden to his proper place ; and when 
the latter returned from America, where he had been 
sojourning a while, it was to find that not only was 
he once more an M. P., but that a seat in the Cabi- 
net waited his acceptance. Still more, he has lived 
to see it a matter of national regret that he did not 
join the Cabinet, and add right honourable to his 
name. In the case of Mr Cobden we have a clear 
illustration of the axiom that it is the age that 
makes the man. When Cobden entered on public 
life, commerce was in need of a mouthpiece to assert 
her importance and to demand her rights. English 
country gentlemen had governed the country in ac- 
cordance with the fancied interests of English country 
gentlemen. How to keep up the rent was the pro- 
blem to be solved. That the time would ever ar- 
rive when the farmers would be scientific, and have a 
fair command of capital, and be enabled to pay higher 
rents and make more money under a system that did 
not prohibit the introduction of foreign corn, never 
entered into the heads of the landed class. England 
was growing to be the workshop of the world. From 
the backwoods of Canada, from distant Chicago, from 
the banks of the Danube, from the vast corn districts 
of Southern Russia, there came a voice saying, " Give 



RICHARD C0BDEN, M.P. 43 

us your manufactures and take our corn. So will your 
poor have work, so will your hungry be fed, so shall 
commerce more effectually bind us in the golden cords 
of peace." In Manchester, in Birmingham, in Sheffield 
and Leeds, where men live by the production of me- 
chanism and manufacture, this truth was clearly and 
painfully felt. But it was only till within the last few 
years that the political existence of Manchester, and 
Birmingham, and Sheffield, and Leeds, had been ad- 
mitted by our governing classes. Huskisson was be- 
ginning to see the truth in these matters, but the 
sudden termination of his lamented life left the com- 
mercial classes almost friendless and alone in the 
Senate. The landlords ruled the roast, and adminis- 
tered the game laws, and believed with Malthus that 
society had a tendency to advance beyond the means 
of subsistence, and stood aghast at the ever-increasing 
mass of pauperism, a terror by night and by day in their 
midst. The pious recommended resignation, the in- 
telligent began to inquire how it was that life was such 
a curse, that here there was abundance, there, starva- 
tion. They found that our Corn-Laws produced much 
of this mischief ; that the time had come for England 
to burst her chains, and take tremendous strides, or to 
be for ever fallen. At this crisis Richard Cobden 
arose. He had been a Manchester manufacturer ; he 
was now to be the utterance of the wants and wishes 
of the age. The best years of his life he devoted to 
that work, and the splendid testimonial subscribed to 



4-i MODERN STATESMEN. 

him by the people of England at the termination of 
the Anti- Corn- Law agitation was but a poor equivalent 
for the pecuniary losses he had sustained by renouncing 
a successful mercantile career. Even a subsequent 
pecuniary subscription, on the occasion of his losses by 
his American investments, was but a small per cent- 
age on the progress made by the subscribers under 
Free Trade. 

Is it not time that we begin to understand history ? 
The one great fact taught by wars, and rebellions, and 
revolutions of all kinds ; by the decline and fall of 
Rome, by the collapse of French monarchies, by the 
growth of English freedom, by the spread of Anglo- 
Saxon institutions in America and Australia ; is that, 
by fair means or foul, every twenty- four hours a man 
must dine. Understand this, and the past ceases to be 
a mighty maze without a plan. Understand this, and 
history is no longer a riddle. Understand this, and 
the curtain is drawn up and you see living men. 
Our statesmen and historians use fine phrases, but 
they have no meaning, and merely darken and per- 
plex. For instance, who, besides a professed states- 
man, or newspaper writer, or Edinburgh He viewer, 
ever cared a straw about the balance of power in Eu- 
rope ? Men are not moved by such phantoms. Yet, 
if you read history, you would think that millions of 
men have died, and millions of money have been 
squandered about an unmeaning phrase. The simple 
fact was, that in France people got hungry, and did 



RICHARD COBDEN, M.P. 45 

not know how to satisfy their hunger without upset- 
ting a monarchy. In 1816 we had a bad harvest, and 
the result was a Reform Bill ; a few years later the 
potato crop failed in Ireland, and we had Free Trade. 
Life is too short and people are too busy to go to war, 
for the grand reasons given by the historian, or em- 
bodied in state papers. In ordinary life the hottest 
politician is a plain, plodding tradesman, taking 
care of the pence, and civil to his customers. In the 
same manner the ordinary life of a nation is devoted 
to its material interests. If it be otherwise, there is 
something wrong. Perhaps Mr Cobden understands 
this truth better than any man living. His percep- 
tion of it has been the secret of his success and the 
pole-star of his life. In developing this idea, he makes 
sad havoc of old notions and party cries. An M.P. 
present in the House when Canning made that famous 
speech about calling the new world into existence, to 
redress the balance of the old, said : " While he was 
speaking, Mr Canning seemed actually to have in- 
creased in stature, his attitude was so majestic, his 
chest heaved and expanded, his nostril dilated ; a 
noble pride slightly curled his lip, age and sickness 
were forgotten, and dissolved in the ardour of youthful 
genius." Cobden would never — could never — have pro- 
duced such an effect. Had he been in Canning's situa- 
tion, had he held the reins of power, his eye would have 
sparkled, and his breast would have expanded, and 
his whole frame would have quivered with emotion ; 



46 MODERN STATESMEN, 

not that he had called into existence some half-dozen 
of the most accursed governments under the sun (for 
such Canning's emancipated colonies turned out), but 
that he had won for the toiling masses of his country- 
men a right to earn their daily bread. Undoubtedly 
that is the primary need. Without that right achieved, 
no nation can be prosperous, or renowned, or great. 
It is not in utter poverty that the Graces love to dwell. 
Where the struggle for existence is bitter and all-ab- 
sorbing, there is no morality, no intelligence, no civil- 
ization worthy of the name, and man is but little better 
than a brute. A nation may fight to revenge the 
wrongs of oppressed nationalities, but ere it does this, 
it must have done its duty to itself. 

Yet, in the middle classes nine men out of ten tell 
you what a pity it is that Mr Cobden has so lost himself 
by his peace crotchets. It is true he has said many 
things, and some of them not wise ones. A man who 
has made as many speeches as Mr Cobden has done, is 
pretty sure, occasionally, to fall into blunders. In the 
heat and excitement of great struggles, things are 
said which turn out to be utter folly, yet the speakers 
of them are not set down as fools. The Duke of Wel- 
lington said it would be madness in him to think of 
being prime minister, yet directly after he attained 
that exalted rank. You could almost always tell 
when Sir Robert Peel was about to turn by the 
solemnity and vehemence with which he asserted he 
was not. Did not Sir Robert Inglis prophesy that ten 



RICHARD COBDEN, M.P. 47 

years after the Reform Bill was carried, the House of 
Peers and the State Church would be destroyed, and 
England would be turned into a republic ? Did not he 
say he would be afraid to trust the Bible to the people 
unless it was in the hands of the clergy of the Church 
of England ? and yet the man who could thus doubt 
the truth and power of the Bible as it stands by itself, 
and could thus insanely prophesy, was, to the very last, 
representative of an English University. Lord Eldon 
upheld the most disgraceful and sanguinary criminal 
code in Europe, and for years he was worshipped as the 
wisest of mankind. Many of our leading statesmen 
took an active part in opposing the Corn-Laws, and 
predicted the most disastrous results. We do not 
sneer at them, but Mr Cobden and the champions of 
industrial rights are taunted everlastingly when 
they blunder, as if no other men did the same. For 
them and them alone there are no waters of Lethe. 
Surely this is hard measure. Public opinion in this 
country is led by the aristocracy, and they, of course, 
very naturally look upon the Cobden class with more 
or less disfavour, but the disfavour of the Manchester 
school is to be attributed to a deeper source. Old Hobbes 
tells us man naturally is in a state of war. The Man- 
chester school ignore this primary fact, and thus runs 
counter to the universal instincts of our race. War is 
a folly, a crime, a curse, but men have always fought 
nevertheless ; and now, when all Europe resounds with 
the measured tread of armed men, more distant than 



48 MODERN STATESMEN. 

ever seems the day when the war-drum shall throb no 
longer, 

"And the battle flag be furl'd 
In the parliament of man, in the federation of the world." 

Now Mr Cobden 's Peace speeches have not merely- 
been falsified, but have been distasteful as well. Thus, 
when in a speech at Wrexham, in 1850, Mr Cobden 
said he would rather cut down the expenditure for 
military establishments to ten millions, and run every 
danger from France or any other quarter, than risk the 
danger of attempting to keep up the present standard 
of taxation and expenditure, common sense tells us that 
the real question is one of national safety, and not of 
expense. If our war expenditure in time past had been 
greater we should have saved money now, as it is clear 
that our neglect in this respect has stimulated in other 
quarters increased activity. Mr Cobden, in the same 
speech, said he believed there never was an instance 
known in the history of the world of as many as 50,000 
men being transported across the salt waters within 
12 months. It is true he cannot say that now, but the 
inference remains. In the same way he argues against 
a French invasion, because he and his family happen 
to have a comfortable domicile in Paris. No man bet- 
ter than Mr Cobden can be blind to what he does not 
wish to see. Knowing the immense material advan- 
tage to England and France of peace, he can see no- 
thing in the immense naval preparations of that coun- 
try — nothing in such fortifications as Cherbourg— - 



RTCHARD COBDEN, M.P. 49 

nothing in the invective, which under the license of 
the government was launched forth in French Jour- 
nals against perfidious Albion. " The pacific genius of 
the house of Pelham was not unknown to France, and 
fell in very conveniently with their plan of extensive 
empire," writes Horace Walpole, in his " Memoirs of 
the Reign of George II." Is not the passage appli- 
cable to Mr Cobden ? The Peace party and Mr Cob- 
den, in the same way, undoubtedly had much to do 
with that miserable Crimean war. The late Czar, I 
have no doubt, imagined that Mr Cobden and the 
Peace party represented England, and that under no 
circumstances whatever would she go to war. The 
late Czar saw an old ally at the head of affairs. He 
saw Mr Cobden, the mouth -piece of thousands, repre- 
senting all war as absurd. He saw Peace Congresses 
perambulating the land, and he knew that the prime 
movers of them, the Quakers, were men who if smitten 
on one cheek would meekly turn the other, and await 
the blow, He saw that we had allowed him to tram- 
ple Hungary under-foot — that we had been silent when 
Poland was blotted from the map of nations — that 
wildly and viciously Protestant as we were, we had 
allowed the Pope to be re- seated on his tottering throne 
by the aid of French bayonets ; and might he not well 
think that so reckless had we become of our ancient 
prestige — so absorbed had we grown in the pursuit of 
wealth — so permeated had we been by Manchester ora- 
tory and Peace tracts, that scarcely the dictates of 

4 



50 MODERN STATESMEN. 

self-preservation— certainly not the claims of humanity 
or the obligations of treaties, or the considerations of 
an enlightened public policy, or the cause of an effete 
race, whose very existence in Europe was an anomaly — 
would induce us again ever to draw the sword ? The 
Peace party themselves helped to create this confusion. 
Everybody wished them well, and soldiers and sailors 
were at a discount. Most of them, simple-minded, 
good-meaning folk, fell very naturally into the error of 
mistaking their select assemblies of neat Quakeresses 
and verdant youths for the people of England. When 
Mr Bradshaw, of the " Guides," died, — a decent man I 
doubt not, but not known to the nation in any capacity 
whatever beyond that of his trade, — I myself heard 
Joseph Sturge at a public meeting at Edinburgh ex- 
claim that there were more tears shed when the nation 
heard of the death of Mr Bradshaw than when the 
hero of Waterloo died. Now in England we simply 
laugh at such an assertion. But in Russia they could 
not see its absurdity. And the Czar having seen that 
in one agitation Mr Cobden had represented the will 
of the nation, fell into the very easy error of supposing 
that on the question of Peace as well as that of Free 
Trade, Mr Cobden was similarly backed. Still more 
may be urged against Mr Cobden. The war having 
once begun — Quaker Sturge having travelled to St 
Petersburg, bearing the olive branch in vain — he 
should have remembered that he was an Englishman, 
and having lifted up his warning voice and find- 



RICHARD COBDEN, M.P. 51 

in g it disregarded, should not have condescended to seek 
to bring about the national disasters he had predicted. 
It is clear that a nation once committed to a war — any 
arraignment of the policy of that war — any attempt to 
embarrass the parties engaged in carrying it on — any 
endeavour to make it unpopular with the nation at large 
— is, to a certain extent, aiding the power with which 
you are at war. Had Mr Cobden thus acted in the House 
of Commons, he could have been met and refuted on the 
spot, but the real truth is, while he was silent there he 
was mischievously active out of doors. He helped to 
prolong the war in the same manner as the Jacobites in 
1696 helped to prolong the war with Louis the Great. 
Macaulay tells us Louis was inclined for peace. After 
the failure of the Assassination Plot he had made up 
his mind to the necessity of recognising William Prince 
of Orange as king of England, and had authorized 
Callieres to make a declaration to that effect, but the 
Jacobites in London wrote to the Jacobites in St Ger- 
main's such tales of the distresses of the country — of its 
exhaustion and the unpopularity of the Prince, that, to 
the great joy of the non-jurors, Callieres became high 
and arogant, and denied that William was anything 
more than a pretender to the throne. Mr Cobden acted 
precisely in the same manner. Of course I give him cre- 
dit for the best of motives, and believe that he is as 
honest and sincere a patriot as any man living, but 
if he wishes to be popular he must give up his peace 
crotchets. He is strong enough to be able to say, " I, 

4 * 



52 • MODERN STATESMEN. 

in common with the wise and good of the British nation, 
have blundered, and find the Millennium of peace fur- 
ther off than I dreamed." All men deprecate war. Mr 
Cobden must not believe that he and the men in drab 
are the only friends to peace. As sincerely and passion- 
ately as Mr Cobden himself, we believe, do our leading 
statesmen long for peace : but we cannot shut our eyes 
to the fact that the course of events has placed us in the 
foremost files of time — that we may not stand in despi- 
cable isolation, printing calicoes and jingling guineas, 
while the strong are trampling on the weak, and robbery 
is being attempted at our very doors. Sure are we that 
when the nation shall have stooped to take so mean a 
view of its vocation, its glory will have departed, and the 
period will have arrived when the famous picture of 
Macaulay shall be realized, and the stranger from New 
Zealand, standing on Westminster-bridge, and con- 
templating the ivied ruins of St Paul's, shall mark the 
traces of a greatness that has passed away. The spirit 
that animates the nation in a righteous war is a noble 
one. Humanity has shone brightest at such periods. It 
would require the most profound ignorance of history 
for a man to assert that the contests which gave the 
victories of Marathon and Salamis to the Greeks — that 
roused up in the Middle Ages the followers of the 
Crescent and the Cross — that triumphed at Waterloo — 
that crushed the Indian revolt — were among the least 
illustrious events that occupy and adorn the annals of 
the world. Mr Cobden is unfortunate when he ap- 



RICHARD COBDEN, M.P. 53 

peals to history. About eighty years since, our states- 
men were after his own heart. Our national income 
was unequal to our peace establishment ; our navy 
was a " visionary fabric ; " our troops were not suf- 
ficient to be of any service ; Frederic the Great had 
civilly declined the overtures of Mr Fox ; we had at- 
tempted to patch up an ignominious peace ; yet a 
War Minister came into office, and never did the na- 
tion achieve a wider reputation, or wield a more irre- 
sistible power. 

Mr Cobden, like Mr Bright, underrates "the influ- 
ence of the landed aristocracy, and he is too willing 
to believe that the public is an enlightened body, act- 
ing solely from a sense of its own interests. The truth 
is, that the public, whether of France or England, is 
very often the dupe of its passions and fancies, and 
that in England, whatever may be done occasionally 
by dwellers in cities, the real power is in the hands 
of the land- owners. He and Mr Bright also take it 
for granted that we have a party in this country who 
wish to go to war ; a bigger blunder it is impossible 
to make. 

11 What do you think of Cobden ? " said the writer 
to a large Norfolk farmer, after the former had been 
delivering an address in the fine old hall of the county 
town. " Why," said he, " I believe if Cobden had 
held up a sheet of white paper and told us it was black 
we should all have sworn the same thing." This 
answer may be accepted as a fair description of Cob- 



54 MODERN STATESMEN. 

den as a speaker. By his appearance he disarms all 
prejudices. You see a man of middle size, very plain- 
ly dressed, rather fresh coloured, with brown hair, 
slightly streaked with grey, and with arched eyebrows, 
which gives him a very shrewd appearance. There is 
a harshness in his voice, but that goes off after he has 
spoken a sentence or two, and there is such an ease 
about the man, such a clever adaptation of himself to 
his audience — you feel so much at home with him, he 
has so thoroughly the air of one arguing alone and 
familiarly with yourself — that it is almost impossible, at 
any rate while he is speaking, not to range yourself on 
his side. His unaffected good-nature, his natural plea- 
santry, are irresistible. In the House of Commons he 
is much the same as on the platform, equally clear, 
equally unaffected, equally at home. There he stands 
on the right of the Speaker below the gangway, 
slightly stooping, as if from physical languor, alter- 
nately pointing with the fore-finger of his right hand 
to some honourable gentleman on the Opposition 
benches, with whom, if you could only see and not 
hear, you would suppose he was carrying on a very 
animated conversation. Occasionally the left hand is 
brought into play, and by means of sundry taps ad- 
ministered to it by his right, Mr Cobden denotes that 
he has made some very effectual observations. Mr 
Cobden does not attempt eloquence — does not quote 
the classics — is very seldom witty — but gives you the 
idea of a plain man talking upon business in a business- 



RICHARD COBDEN, M.P. 55 

like way. You listen to him in vain for the magic play 
of fancy — for rhetoric " rich with barbaric pearls and 
gold " — for a philosophy that shall live when speaker 
and hearer, shall have passed away. Charles Fox's 
test of a speech is eminently applicable to Mr Cobden 
— " Does it read well ? if so it was a bad speech." 
Mr Cobden satisfies himself with arguing the questions 
of the present moment with the facts of the present ; 
all his references, all his hits and his speeches, abound 
with them ; all his arguments are gathered from the 
experience of the day. Occasionally this leads him 
into error, as when he said he believed a modern 
newspaper a better mental exercise than a page of 
Thucydides ; but to the men of to-morrow he leaves 
the task of doing to-morrow's work. Indeed, there 
are symptoms occasionally discernible indicating that 
Mr Cobden is more ready to seek repose — to which 
no one has a fairer right — than to buckle on the 
armour for fresh fights. 

In one thing he is still, however, as earnest as ever. 
In the cause of Free Trade, and the vast interest in- 
volved in the idea, he neither tires nor faints. For 
the recent changes in the commercial policy of France 
— for the pledge it gives us of peace — for the plenty 
it will give to manufacturing millions on each side the 1 
Channel — for all the blessings, social, intellectual 
moral, it will scatter the wide world over — let the 
English nation tender grateful thanks to Richard 
Cobden. 



IY. 



THE RT. HON. BENJAMIN DISRAELI. 



Towards the close of the year 1837, a young man of 
somewhat singular appearance and gesticulation, 
broke down in his maiden speech in the House of 
Commons. Great things had been expected from him.. 
In most circles he had contrived to get talked about 
— in some to be admired. Years before, with all the 
confidence of genius and youth, he had told the Irish 
O'Connell that he would meet him at Philippi, and 
the hour of that meeting had at length arrived. Al- 
ready the young debutant had become remarkable for 
the facility with which he had learned to repeat the 
most contrary doctrines, and to champion interests 
and prejudices seemingly the most opposed. Maryle- 
bone had heard his declaration, that unless the ballot 
and triennial parliaments were conceded, he could not 
conceive how the Legislature could ever be in har- 
mony with the people. At High Wycombe he had 
told the electors that in all financial changes the agri- 



THE RT. HON. BENJAMIN DISRAELT. 57 

cultural interest ought especially to be considered ; 
and at Taunton, he who had appeared at Marylebone 
as the friend of Joseph Hume became the representa- 
tive of the Duke of Buckingham and the Carlton 
Club. At Maidstone, by the defeat of a liberal almost 
as incomprehensible as himself, he at length succeeded 
in gaining a seat in St. Stephen's. With pride he 
took his stand in the presence of the Whig dignitaries 
of whom he had spoken evil, and of the puzzled country 
gentlemen, who could not understand how their Tory- 
ism was more democratic than the politics of the 
Whigs, who were wont to drink to civil and religious 
liberty all over the world, and to toast the people as 
the only source of legitimate power. Not merely also 
in the troubled walk of politics, or as the paradoxical 
commentator on the English constitution, or, as in 
" Runnymede," the most keen dissector of the materiel 
of the Whig cabinet, was the aspirant for parliament- 
ary laurels known to fame. In the world of fashion 
and of literature he had already become notorious for 
the piquancy and satire of his novels. The speaker 
also was a dandy — there were dandies in 1837 — and, 
therefore, was to be regarded with curiosity. The 
Conservatives mustered in considerable numbers to 
back their new man. On the Whig benches there 
was awe and expectation. Sir Robert Peel cheered 
the young debutant with most stentorian tones. Alas ! 
in vain was the cheer ; the debut was a failure. The 
exaggerated attitude and diction of the speaker ex- 



58 MODERN STATESMEN. 

cited universal ridicule. At length, losing his temper 
and pausing in the midst of his harangue, Disraeli — 
for it is he of whom we write — at the top of his voice 
exclaimed, as he resumed his seat, baffled, beaten, 
derided, but not despairing, " Though I sit down now, 
the time will come when you will hear me." It is not 
always such predictions are realized. In this case, 
however, it was no empty boast. The man thus ridi- 
culed and coughed at, thus rejected and despised, was 
he who lived to hurl at Sir Robert Peel the fiercest 
philippics known in modern parliamentary annals, and 
who, by his mere strength of brain, lifted himself up 
to be the leader of the renowned historic party which 
had been illustrated by the splendid eloquence of a 
Bolingbroke and the administrative skill of a Pitt. 

Seated on the Opposition benches, half-way down, 
with some small-brained son of a duke by his side, 
night after night may be seen the leader of Her 
Majesty's Opposition. Generally, his eyes are cast 
down, his hands are crossed in front, and he has all 
the appearance of a statue. Cold, passionless, he 
seems of an alien race — a stranger to the hopes, and 
fears, and interests of a British House of Commons. 
You wonder how he got there, and how the Tyrrels, 
and Spooners, and Newdegates, and the rosy-cheeked 
country gentlemen could have borne banners under 
such as he. However fierce the debate, or heated 
the House, or pressing the crisis, there sits Disraeli, 
occasionally looking at his hands or the clock — other- 



THE RT. HON. BENJAMIN DISRAELI. 59 

wise silent, unmoved, and still. Yet an Indian scout 
could not keep a more vigilant watch — and immedi- 
ately an opportunity occurs, he is on his legs, boiling 
with real or affected indignation. I say real or 
affected, because Disraeli has so much of the artist 
about him that you never know whether he is in 
earnest or not. 

As an illustration, let me refer to the debate which 
ensued on Lord John Russell's diplomatic proceedings 
at Vienna. It was amusing to see how, at such times, 
with an elaborate deference all the bitterer for its trans- 
parent hollowness, Disraeli would turn to Lord John, 
and leaning confidentially against the table, pour out 
against the miserable little man, now looking very 
angry, all the invective which his folly justified and 
required. Such a situation can only be shadowed 
forth by simile. Lord John seemed, as you can 
imagine, the traveller in the desert overtaken and 
whirled along by the fierce simoom ; or as the hap- 
less voyager caught in his frail bark in the Mediter- 
ranean in a white squall,] and entombed for ever be- 
neath its unpitying waves ; or, if you are not a 
traveller, and have ever seen him in such a plight, as 
some poor Cockney, with his Easter Monday gar- 
ments on, in a heavy storm of rain and hail on Prim- 
rose Hill, or Hampstead Heath. Disraeli used no 
sugared phrases, no mincing terms, no artifice, to 
veil his contempt ; and the noble scion of the House 
of Bedford was compelled for a couple of hours to sit 



60 MODERN STATESMEN. 

through a hell such as only a Dante could describe, 
or a Fuseli or a Martin paint. You thought of the 
Indian dancing on the dead body of his prostrate foe ; 
of yourself at a respectable dinner-party, in tight boots 
and with aching corns, seated between two strong- 
minded females, with a purple-faced London alder- 
man opposite ; of the boa-constrictor drinking the last 
drop of his victim's blood, and crushing his last bone ; 
of the sufferers of Greek tragedy, with its stern, un- 
relenting fate ; — and you were not sorry when the 
task was over, and his mauled and mangled foe re- 
leased. 

For savage sarcasm Disraeli stands unrivalled. His 
self-possession — his intellectual versatility — his clear 
and cold voice — his plucky appearance, all aid him in a 
wonderful manner. In his own peculiar line it is 
dangerous to attempt to cope with him. Roebuck on 
one occasion did so, and signally failed. Somehow 
or other, one does not speak of Disraeli as an orator, 
or as a philosopher — like Burke or Mackintosh — utter- 
ing sentences that will form the wisdom of after-ages ; 
or even as a rhetorician, as Macaulay and Sheil. We 
do not read that he was eloquent, argumentative, 
pathetic, or patriotic. You speak of him as you 
would of Tom Sayers. His admirers tell you that he 
was " in good condition" — that he " showed fight" — 
that he was "plucky as usual" — that he "hit right 
and left" — that he was " up to the mark" — and there 
is a similar isolation and singularity in his parlia- 



THE RT. HON. BENJAMIN DISRAELI. 61 

mentary conduct. Though the leader of a party, he 
is not its slave ; and on occasions he fails even to do 
the proper thing. Thus at the close of the Crimean 
war, on the vote of the address on peace — an oppor- 
tunity which only comes once in a generation — when, 
according to conventional rules, Disraeli should have 
made a grand oration, he was actually dumb, and 
jumped up immediately and left the House after 
Palmerston's two hours' speech — as if it were one of 
the silent members who ingloriously sleep on back 
benches during the very hottest of a parliamentary 
debate. Historians tell us how Prince Rupert was 
more than a match for the old-fashioned commanders 
of the Commonwealth. From his lair at Kinsale — 
from his lair in the Scilly Isles — from his lair in 
Jersey, he would pounce upon his enemy, and was 
irresistible — till a new system was inaugurated, and 
Blake, a man of greater genius and daring, raised the 
red cross of the Commonwealth. Lord Derby has 
been called the Prince Rupert of debate, but the term 
is more applicable to Disraeli. When you expect 
him to speak, he has nothing to say ; when you do 
not expect him, he is on his legs ; when you think he 
will go on for another hour, he sits down as rapidly 
and unexpectedly as he gets up. He delights in sur- 
prises, and you cannot tell which is the studied effort 
and which the impromptu retort. Herein especially 
is manifest his superiority over the conventional 
speakers — the Greys and Lord John Russells, who 



62 MODERN STATESMEN. 

have got for their Blake a Bernal Osborne. Disraeli 
is savagely personal. It is his forte, and no one in 
the House can compete with him. Disraeli has the 
field entirely — too entirely — to himself, and no wonder 
is it that personality is his favourite weapon, and the 
one the best appreciated by the young lordlings be- 
hind him, who cheer infinitely better than speak. At 
the same time, it must be confessed that Toryism is 
always more ungentlemanly and personal than that 
sublime intellectual abortion, the pure old Whig. The 
only personal paper attempted in our day was the 
Press, and that soon gave up personalities ; the 
Satirist was a Conservative paper ; so was the John 
Bull; so was Blackwood, when it charged Hazlitt 
with having pimples on his face ; so was the Anti- 
Jacobin, when it called Charles James Fox 

" The Catiline of modern times." 

If we go back to the days of Swift, L'Estrange, and 
Mrs Manley, we shall find the same personality cha- 
racteristic of the High Church and Tory party. Dr 
Arnold, somewhere in his letters, makes a similar re- 
mark. 

It is wonderful — the power ' of oratory. The 
speaker, whether from the platform or the pulpit, is 
the only worker who gets his reward at once. You 
may invent what shall enrich a nation, and die a 
beggar ; you may write, but your hair will be grey 
before the world is familiar with your name ; you may 



THE RT. HON. BENJAMIN DISRAELI. 63 

be a poet, and fame may not own your genius till the 
turf on your grave is green ; but, possess the magic 
power with the living voice to reach the living heart 
of multitudes, and immediately you are a king 
amongst men. Not merely amongst a rude, un- 
tutored peasantry, or inflammable youth, or a middle- 
class public particularly prone to clap-trap, or an 
Exeter-Hall audience, rather feminine than select; 
but amongst educated gentlemen and polished 
scholars, amongst men who have long mastered 
emotion, and to whom most oratory is as " sounding 
brass, or as a tinkling cymbal." On a grand field 
night you find this as you see Disraeli, perfectly 
aware that victory is beyond his grasp, standing on 
the floor of the House, his eyes flashing defiance, his 
lip curled with sarcasm, his arm pointed to the object 
of attack, and his voice alternately expressing indigna- 
tion and contempt. As I have already hinted, as an 
orator Disraeli stands by himself. It is not English 
— that elaborately- dressed form ; that pale Hebrew 
face, shaded with curling hair, still luxuriant and 
dark ; that style, so melo-dramatic, yet so effective ; 
that power of individuality which makes you hate the 
object of his hate; that passion which you scarce 
know whether to call malignant or sublime. When 
he rises, it is needless for the speaker to announce his 
name. A glance at the orator, with his glistening 
vest, tells you that the great advocate of the pure 
Semitic race is on his legs. You have seen that face 



64 MODERN STATESMEN. 

in Punch. You have imagined Coningsby just as 
attentively listened to, or Vivian Grey looking 
just as cool. It is not every man that can play a 
losing game. To speak from the Treasury benches 
with a whipper-in to make a house and secure 
you a cordial welcome, to feel that a triumphant 
speech will be succeeded by a triumphant vote, are 
privileges granted but to few — to Disraeli seldom 
indeed. So far as the Opposition are concerned, the 
debate generally languishes till the speaker announces 
the name of the member for Buckinghamshire. Im- 
mediately you lean forward. In his face there is a 
dazzling, saucy look which at once excites your inter- 
est. You see that if not a great man, he is an 
intensely clever one, and though on reflection you 
see more display than reality in his performance, and 
are not sure that he is in earnest, or that he means 
what he says, or that he is sustained and prompted by 
any great principle, you feel that as an orator he has 
few rivals. When he soars, as he occasionally does, 
you tremble lest he should break down ; but Disraeli 
never attempts more than he can achieve, and when 
nearest to pathos he saves himself by a happy flight ; 
but even in his highest efforts he preserves the same 
doggedly-cool and unconcerned appearance, and will 
stop to suck an orange, or actually, as he did in his 
great budget speech, to cut his nails. It is true there 
are times when he looks more emotional. On that 
memorable November morning, when he was ousted 



THE RT. HON. BENJAMIN DISRAELI. 65 

from his chancellorship, when his party were inglo- 

riously driven from the Eden in which they had 

hoped long 

" To live and lie reclined 
On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind," — ■ 

back into the bleak and desert world, the ex-Chancel- 
lor of the Exchequer came out of the House at half- 
past five a.m., gay and fresh as if the majority had been 
with him, not against him. There was an unwonted 
buoyancy in his walk and sparkle in his eye ; but the 
excitement of the contest was hardly over — the swell 
of the storm was there still — still rang in his eyes the 
thunders of applause, audible in the lobby, which 
greeted his daring retorts and audacious personalities. 
Even when as occasionally he leads his party into a 
cut de sac, and listens to their murmurs and hears 
their threats, you cannot perceive any feeling of dis- 
appointment or regret on his impassive face. No stone 
could display more indifference. 

But Disraeli, I am told, has no principles. "Well, 
what eminent M.P. has ? In the House of Commons 
men deal not with principles, but with facts. The 
best statesman in modern times is he who is least 
hampered by principles, and is free to follow the 
leading of public opinion. All legislation is temporary, 
and if we try at anything more enduring we gener- 
ally err. It may be a grave fault in Disraeli — 
granting, for the sake of argument, that the charge be 
true — but, if other statesmen are equally remiss in 



66 MODERN STATESMEN. 

this matter of principle, why is Disraeli alone to be 
singled out for censure ? Has Lord Palmerston been 
so consistent that the British public are to fire with 
indignation at the licentiousness of Disraeli's political 
career ? Lord John Russell's earlier speeches were 
against reform. The great Whig idol entered the. 
House of Commons under Tory auspices. We have 
built up statues in every corner of the land to Sir 
Robert Peel, yet what principle did that eminent 
statesman start with which he did not abdicate in the 
course of his eventful parliamentary existence l Ge- 
nius has a creed of its own — forms of expression of its 
own, and if it condescends to party Shibboleths, it 
gives them a wider bearing. If this be true every- 
where, especially is this true in practical politics, 
where, at all times, 

" Black 's not so very black, nor white so very white ; *' 
and where, in these times, the differences between the 
occupants of the Treasury benches and those of the 
Opposition are so few. There is a wide interval 
between a Hobbes and a Milton — between a Filmer 
and a Locke — between a Blackstone and a Bentham 
— between the stump orator of the Temple Forum, or 
the Codger's Hall, declaiming on the rights of man, 
and the leader of the House of Commons dealing with 
a thousand discordant rights, the growth of the con- 
flicting passions, and principles, and interests, and 
prejudices of a thousand years; but between the 
Whig and Tory aristocracy at this time — between 



THE RT. HON. BENJAMIN DISRAELI. 67 

Lord Derby and Lord Palmerston — the line of separ- 
ation is so obscure that the wonder is that a re- 
spectable line can be held up to the public at all. Mr 
Stafford jobbed at the Admiralty, but were Mr 
Gladstone's nominees immaculate? Disraeli believes 
he and his party are as honest as their opponents. 
The Whig and Peelite writers are astonished, and one 
of the dullest of them, in a feeble octavo containing 
700 pages (" Disraeli ; a biography "), enters his 
protest, and begs to " recall our attention to the prin- 
ciples of English morality, which have done even 
more than the industrious energy and practical genius 
of the people in making England what she is. Eng- 
land has been a standing witness against political 
atheism." Well, if with Disraeli we laugh at the 
Whig aristocracy, who have always been narrow in 
their principles, and narrow in their application, who 
snubbed Burke, ignored Sheridan, only accepted 
Mackintosh when he gave up the doctrines of the 
Vindicice Gallicce, and would have made Canning 
whipper-in — who deluded the nation with a Reform 
Bill which was to have prolonged their political 
existence in secula seculorum, and did not even carry 
Free Trade — if this be political atheism, it has 
become a necessity and a fact. The truth is, position 
has a great deal to do with politics. The Whigs 
found out this when they carried the celebrated 
Appropriation Clause. If Lord Palmerston had been 
in office he would never have defeated Lord John 

5 * 



68 MODERN STATESMEN. 

Bussell and caused the latter to resign on the question 

of general or local militia. Out of office no man has 

declaimed so energetically against the Income Tax as 

Mr Gladstone. In office Mr Horsman was a Whig. 

With the sweets of office dangling before them, as we 

get jackasses to move on by nourishing a bit of hay, 

what lofty patriots (risum teneatis) do middle-aged 

barristers become. On one side of the Speaker's 

chair there are men especially bound to find fault 

with what is professed on the other. Of course they 

do this unsparingly and con amore, because they 

know that if the tables were turned their own acts 

would be subjected to a similar unsparing criticism. 

The country reaps the benefit, for the progress thus 

consummated is slow — slow as public opinion. 

Amongst us 

" Freedom broadens slowly down 
From precedent to precedent ; " 

but to argue that on one side of the Speaker's chair 
are the sheep and on the other the goats — on one side 
the knaves and on the other the honest men — that, 
for instance, a barrister speaking on the Whig side is 
a patriot of the first water, and a barrister speaking 
on the Opposition benches a dishonest partisan — to 
believe, for instance, that a manufacturer with his 
hands red with the blood of factory children (see the 
evidence submitted to the House when Mr Crook 
gained his recent victory) is an enlightened philan- 
thropist, and that a country gentleman, with his 



THE RT. HON. BENJAMIN DISRAELI. 69 

horror of democracy and change, is a selfish ignora- 
mus, betrays a verdancy rare in well-informed circles. 
It is not that Mr Disraeli sits on the side of the House 
that is unpopular, and must be unpopular, that he is 
to be censured. In office he was civil, and that is 
more than can be said of every leader of the House of 
Commons. Partisan hacks may cast no stone at him. 
A more august tribunal there may be even than of 
the House of Commons. For a man not born to rank 
to be on an equality with men of rank, nay more, to 
be their leader, is a triumph, but there are grander 
triumphs still ; if Mr Disraeli has missed them, there 
are few that have found them, and those few rarely 
have a chance of catching Mr Speaker's eye. 



THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 



Many, many years ago, England's foremost statesman 
— distrusted by the multitude — feared by his col- 
leagues for his superiority — wearied of the strife and 
turmoil of party — on the eve of his departure as Go- 
vernor-General of India, spent a short while at Sea- 
forth House, bidding farewell to his Liverpool consti- 
tuents. His custom was, we are told, to sit in his 
room, for hours, gazing on the wide expanse of ocean 
before him; while below, a little lad played at his 
feet in the sand. The old Puritan tells us " Man 
proposes, God disposes." Canning did not go to 
India — stopped at home to let all Europe understand 
that England had done with the holy alliance ; stop- 
ped at home, in a few short years to be buried in 
Westminster Abbey, while a nation wept — and the 
little lad grew, till his name became familiar in our 
mouths as a household word. Does it not seem as if 
the young Gladstone, while playing on the sand with 



THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 71 

England's great statesman, looking far on the wide 
sea before him, had caught some of the genius — some 
of the individuality — some of the eloquence — some of 
the statesmanship, which has given to the name of 
Canning an immortality which shall be fresh and fra- 
grant when the grave in Westminster Abbey and the 
statue in Palace-yard shall have crumbled into dust 1 
Let me not be understood to place Gladstone on an 
equal pedestal with Canning; to do so were ridiculous. 
The genius of Canning was of the highest order ; like 
that of all great men, it was universal in its range — it 
embraced the opposite poles of human thought and 
action. With the keen arrow of his wit he could deal 
as deadly blow as could others with the most vehement 
invective or laboured harangue. Gladstone is here 
wofully deficient. He neither jests, nor laughs, nor 
smiles, and evidently avoids, as unfair, little tricks and 
artifices which less scrupulous or more skilful orators 
would be but too happy to employ. It must also be re- 
membered that oratorical display is less sought in the 
House of Commons than formerly. Year by year it 
is becoming more a business assembly — more and more 
a monster vestry meeting, and less and less a gathering 
of " patres conscripti." The oratorical era of the House 
of Commons reached its climax with Canning; the 
House now meets for the " despatch of business," and 
the men who succeed now-a-days are men whose 
faculty of business is something wonderful, and Mr 
Gladstone is no exception to this rule. 



72 MODERN STATESMEN. 

In the first reformed Parliament, as if to show the 
fallacy of the melancholy forebodings of the anti-re- 
formers, to the effect that for the future all talent 
would avoid St Stephen's, Mr Gladstone, then a very 
young man, of ample promise, from whom much was 
expected by his friends and collegiate contemporaries, 
became member for the Duke of Newcastle's close 
borough of Newark. His initiation into office, under 
Sir Robert Peel, took place soon after. When Sir 
Robert was prematurely borne off the political arena 
by a lamentable accident, Mr Gladstone became known 
to the world as a faithful Peelite, intent upon the vin- 
dication of his master's fame, and consistent in the 
application of his principles. It also became clear 
that he is somewhat more than the blind follower of a 
great leader. He had given proofs of unusual tender- 
ness of conscience, of marvellous subtilty of intellect, 
of rare independence of spirit — for he had resigned 
office, though on what ground was never exactly clear, 
and had written upon High Church claims, on prin- 
ciples exclusively his own. No mention is made of 
Mr Gladstone in the ei Orators of the Age," a book 
published in 1847. In 1838 Mr James Grant could 
write, and reviewers could praise, the book in which 
such want of political sagacity occurs as follows : — " I 
have no idea that he will ever acquire the reputation 
of a great statesman." It is not very long since the 
above was written ; and now, on all sides, it is ad- 
mitted Mr Gladstone is the ablest man in the House 



THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. id 

of Commons. It was he alone who overthrew Disraeli 
as he had just acquired the Chancellorship of the Ex- 
chequer and the leadership of the House of Commons, 
and was the mainstay of the Coalition Cabinet. In 
the natural course of events Mr Gladstone must soon 
be premier. If he does not acquire the reputation of 
a great statesman, it is clear no man in our age will. 
I fancy Mr Disraeli has no love for the orator who 
triumphed over him with ease, and with a proud con- 
sciousness of rectitude more potent even than eloquence 
itself. Out-of-doors Mr Gladstone has yet to win that 
hearty popularity which is the lot for a short while of 
the man whom the people delighteth to honour, but it 
is not in the House of Commons and amongst his 
peers that his accession to power would be viewed 
with regret. 

Sidney Smith's description of Horner I have always 
considered peculiarly appropriate to Gladstone — 
" There was something very remarkable in his counte- 
nance. The commandments were written in his face, 
and I have often told him there was not a crime he 
might not commit with impunity, as no judge nor jury 
who saw him would give the smallest degree of credit 
to any evidence against him. There was in his look a 
calm, settled love of all that was honourable and good 
— an air of wisdom and sweetness. You saw at once 
that he was a great man, whom Nature had intended 
for a leader of human beings. You ranged yourself 
willingly under his banner, and submitted to his 



74 MODERN STATESMEN. 

sway." I copy the passage, as very applicable to the 
subject of this article. Judge for yourself. Come 
with me into the Strangers' gallery of the House of 
Commons. It is early yet ; the hour appointed for 
the transaction of private business is not over ; but 
already down at the Treasury Bench there is the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, with papers all around, 
to the study of which he devotes apparently consider- 
able attention. All of a sudden you see him drop his 
papers and look earnestly at some speaker who has risen 
to ask him some unimportant question. Mr Gladstone 
rises, takes off his hat, and advances to the table. With 
his plain dress and his fluent delivery you might almost 
take him for a clergyman. He repeats the question, 
answers it in language of remarkable elegance, and sits 
down without making the slightest effort at display. 
Look at him now, with full dark eyes, clear intellectual 
head, and a body well proportioned, and of an average 
size. Nowhere can you see a face more indicative of 
goodness, and honesty, and power. Of the latter, if you 
■wait, you will soon cease to doubt. A motion is before 
the House. Mr Gladstone rises to defend the govern- 
ment ; and however forcible may have been the attack, 
equally forcible is the defence. He is a master of de- 
bate, and you are not sorry when he rises to reply. His 
acuteness never fails him. His voice is always good, 
his delivery always animated, and his language never 
at fault. If you were to print his speech from the re- 
porters' short-hand notes, without any revision what- 



THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. i O 

ever, it "would be a perfect piece of composition. On 
one occasion, the celebrated Dick Martin complained 
that the reporters had not done him justice. It was 
urged that they had but given the hon. gentleman's 
exact words. " True," he said, " but did I spake them 
in italics ? " Mr Gladstone never need fear the report- 
ers giving his exact words, even with the accompanying 
italics. Better than any man in the House he can stand 
the test of ridicule. Indeed, with his serious demeanour 
he abashes levity, and puts aside all trifling. He would 
act the part of one of the Roman senators to perfection. 
If he cannot win a victory by fair means, he will not 
by foul. When the House, as it is too apt to do, forgets 
itself — when it abounds with sarcasm and personalities, 
Mr Gladstone sits silent and sorrowful. But I have 
not yet given you an idea of his power. The party de- 
bate over, the House goes into committee. It is late ; 
the House is hot ; members are weary and away ; but 
one man is at his post, and that man is Mr Gladstone. 
Not a criticism is uttered but he makes a note of it. 
With his knees crossed so as to serve him for a table, 
with a pencil in his hand, with his head bent forward 
in the direction of the speaker, there he sits hour after 
hour, save when he rises to defend, or enforce, or ex- 
plain the measure of which he has the charge. I believe 
he may make a dozen speeches in the course of a single 
night on different subjects, and so silvery is his voice, 
so ready his language, so acute, and searching, and 
comprehensive his criticism, that, the more you hear of 



76 MODERN STATESMEN. 

him, the more you are impressed with admiration. In 
his intellect, strength and flexibility are combined, and 
thus it is he is so full and elastic, and effective when on 
his legs. The more difficult the theme, the more ani- 
mated the debate, the more solemn the crisis, the more 
does he shine. Some of his more serious efforts are 
worthy of the best days of parliamentary history. When 
some national unrighteousness has been done, when 
some folly of the hour has to be pointed out and de- 
plored, you know then that Gladstone, with "dauntless 
words and high," will speak as did he 

" "Who shook the sere leaves from the wood 
As if a storm pass'd by." 

Perhaps his greatest triumphs have been his last. 
No one but Mr Gladstone could have reconciled the 
House of Commons not merely to the continuance, but 
to the increasing the Income Tax, at the very time the 
public had been led to expect its abolition altogether. 
Mr Gladstone's sore-throat, which necessitated delay, 
was a European difficulty. Happily nature and Dr 
Ferguson proved victorious, and the Palmerston cabi- 
net was saved. The Chancellor's speech of four hours 
was a master-piece of tact and ingenuity ; was persuasive 
and eloquent, and overpowering ; the reply to Mr Dis- 
raeli was complete, and for once in his life Mr Gladstone 
was almost savage. " I could not stand that speech of 
Gladstone's," said a Conservative M.P. to a friend ; "I 
was compelled to vote for him." In the debate on Mr 



THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 77 

Du Cane's amendment as if conscious of his coming 
majority of 116, Mr Gladstone assumed a haughty and 
dashing bearing, and displayed a disposition to punish 
his adversaries, which he seldom evinces. His budget 
took the world by surprise; it was, as an M.P. described 
it, an ambitious budget. The Opposition made but a 
feeble fight ; Mr Disraeli was but faintly supported by 
his own party. For a wonder, after he had spoken 
about a quarter of an hour, members flocked into the 
lobby, and chatted away with their hands in their 
pockets, as if Mr Spooner were delivering an oration 
against Maynooth, or as if a Marylebone M.P. were 
ingloriously riding some dull hobby to death. Sir 
John Pakington made a blunder still worse. His ad- 
vice to the aggrieved hop -growers to rally with the 
publicans and sinners — with all the interests damaged, 
or expecting to be damaged, by the budget, rendered 
their cause hopeless. When the question lay, as the 
hon. baronet seemed to imply, between the public good 
on one side and particular interests on the other, there 
could be no doubt as to the result. Theoretically the 
House of Commons may be an imperfect body, but 
more or less it represents public opinion, and no one 
appeals to its public spirit in vain. 

Mr Gladstone's position is by no means a pleasant 
one. Mr Fox said he would rather get his bread any 
way than by being Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
Depend upon it Mr Gladstone would say the same. As 
a man of peace, he has been compelled to find the 



78 MODERN STATESMEN. 

money for the Chinese war — a war against which he 
has more than once raised an indignant protest ; he 
has had to swallow his objections to an income tax, 
and increase it ; he has had to put up with a " gi- 
gantic innovation," and pocket the one-and-a-half 
millions of money the Lords persisted in pressing on 
him by refusing to repeal the paper duty. He has 
had, besides, to come to parliament for money for 
fortifications. No wonder he is indignant, — no won- 
der he charges the House of Commons and the people 
of his country with extravagance, — no wonder he ex- 
claimed as he did in one of his speeches towards the 
end of the late session: — "Vacillation, uncertainty, 
costliness, extravagance, meanness, and all the conflict- 
ing vices that could be enumerated, are united in our 
present system. There is a total want of authority to 
direct and guide. When anything is to be done we 
have to go from department to department, from the 
Executive to the House of Commons, from the House 
of Commons to a Committee, from a Committee to a 
Commission, and from a Commission back to a Com- 
mittee, so that years pass away, the public is disap- 
pointed, and the money of the country is wasted. I 
believe such are the evils of the system that nothing 
short of revolutionary reform will ever be sufficient to 
rectify it." 

Mr Gladstone, it must be admitted, has his faults. In 
the first place, he has the logical faculty in excess, 
and will keep on splitting hairs till you are exhausted ; 



THE RT. HON. W r . E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 79 

and, secondly, when out of office, and freed from its 
responsibilities, he will persist in putting before the 
House the unpopular side of the question. Again, he 
is of an enthusiastic character, and will paint a picture 
coulcur de rose when the facts have a decided tendency 
the other way. He is very often the slave of an idea ; 
he contemplates it till he loses all perception of any- 
thing else. Hence is it he has not a stronger position 
out of doors. Out of office this habit increases, till it 
is sometimes actually offensive. Whatever may be 
the subject of debate, he is sure to lengthen it and en- 
cumber it. He ignores the popular view. It must 
be refined, and sublimated, and in perilous mazes 
lost, and then Mr Gladstone is in his glory. In office 
he is a very different and much safer man ; and the 
Premier may sleep secure as long as Mr Gladstone is 
at his post. Yet in office he will do strange things. 
He resigned rather than vote for an inquiry into the 
causes of the fearful calamities and horrors of the 
Crimean campaign. As the representative of the body 
that is least permeated with the popular feeling in 
England — the Oxford University — Mr Gladstone 
seems compelled to act in this way. On the Russian 
war — on the Divorce Bill- — on the Church Rate Bill — 
he thus voted on the unpopular side. Yet you feel 
that St Stephen's does not contain an honester man, 
that 

"Neither gold, 
Nor sordid fame, nor hope of heavenly bliss," 



80 MODERN STATESMEN. 

could lead him to deviate a hair's breadth from what 
he conceived to be the right. Nay, more — occasion- 
ally he will boil over with enthusiasm, as when, in his 
Letters to Lord Aberdeen, on the sufferings of the 
Neapolitan state prisoner, he made 

" All Europe ring from side to side." 
His mission to the Ionian Islands — unfortunate as it 
turned out to be in every respect — was undertaken in 
a similar fit of enthusiasm. Indeed, he has so much 
of this precious quality that it cannot all find a 
vent in public life. Hence a work on Homer, too 
bulky even for men of ample leisure and scholarship 
to find time to read. 

Remember that Mr Gladstone entered the House of 
Commons as the nominee of the late Duke of New- 
castle — the Duke who asked if he might not do as he 
liked with his own ? — admit that he is no party man 
— that he is very conscientious — that he is very anx- 
ious to learn, and the conclusion is that he admits now 
much that he opposed in earlier life. When he 
entered public life he was deeply attached to the 
great retrogressive party in Church and State ; but 
he found much that had been clear in an Oxford 
atmosphere was quite the reverse in St Stephen's. 
How strenuous, for instance, was his opposition to the 
Emancipation Act. Let it also be said that he was 
originally a protectionist — that he is now a free-trader 
— that he has given up as impracticable the doctrines 
he enunciated in his "State in its Relation to the 



THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 81 

Church." Strange is it now that England — low-church 
and dissenting — should have for her chief man a be- 
liever in Apostolical Succession. Yet Mr Gladstone 
defends this doctrine, and, on account of it, is a firm 
believer in the Church of England. Chillingworth 
said, " I am fully persuaded there hath been no such 
succession." Bishop Stillingfleet declares, " This suc- 
cession is as muddy as the Tiber itself." Bishop 
Hoadly asserts, " It hath not pleased God, in his pro- 
vidence, to keep up any proof of the least probability or 
moral possibility of a regal and uninterrupted succes- 
sion, but there is a great appearance, and, humanly 
speaking, a certainty to the contrary, that the succes- 
sion had often been interrupted." Archbishop Whately 
says, " There is not a minister in all Christendom who 
is able to trace up, with approach to certainty, his spi- 
ritual pedigree." Mr Gladstone's faith in this respect, 
it may be, redeems his errors of progress in Oxford 
eyes. Oxford may well be proud of the child of her 
training. Mr Gladstone, in 1831, closed a brilliant 
career at Christ Church by taking a double first. 

It was a bright idea of Lord Palmerston, getting 
Mr Gladstone to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
Out of office his mind would have burst all bonds of 
habit and wandered far away. He would have op- 
posed the budget, and the ministry would have been 
defeated. 

It is his charity, which hopeth all things, which has 
led Mr Gladstone into more than foolish acts. On 

6 



82 MODERN STATESMEN. 

several occasions he damaged himself by his official 
appointments. In this world it is not always the good 
men who get on the best. Sometimes the rogues are more 
than a match for them. Now, Mr Gladstone is one of 
the good men ; and when he was a little boy no doubt 
he wrote in his copy-book that " Honesty is the best 
policy," and in his charity, he is too apt to think that 
other men, when they were little boys, did the same. 
Hence, as he gives them credit for learning this motto 
when young, and not forgetting it when they were old, 
he is occasionally imposed on by more worldly men. 
I believe Mr Gladstone would join with the man who, 
after praying for all things under the earth, or in it, 
or above it, finished by praying for the poor devil 
himself. 

Mr Gladstone is one of the few men in the House 
who rise to eloquence of the stateliest order. He is 
seldom, if ever, historical and lost in precedent. He 
seems simply to rely upon his knowledge of the sub- 
ject, and his ability to place it before the House in a 
commanding and attractive manner. How great is his 
merit we can best learn by contrast. When Gladstone 
brought forward his first budget, the House expected 
a treat; the pressure was enormous; strangers had 
taken their places, waiting for the opening of the gal- 
lery, as early as noon, and though the Chancellor of 
the Exchequer spoke nearly five hours, though his 
speech had to do exclusively with those generally dry 
things, facts and figures, the House was crowded to 



THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 83 

the last, and not a stranger left the gallery. When 
Sir Cornewall Lewis, a good man but a poor speaker 
— a speaker, however, who has amazingly improved 
of late — opened his budget, the very reverse was the 
case. f I believe there were ten strangers in the Speak- 
er's gallery ; I believe there were not more than a 
hundred members in the House. Yet the occasion 
was an eventful one. Peace had just been proclaimed, 
but the extra expenditure of the war had not ceased, 
and had Mr Gladstone been the Chancellor, the atten- 
tion of the country and the House would have been 
excited. As it was, a humdrum speaker performed 
his duties in a humdrum manner, and not even money 
matters aroused a dumb House into eloquence and 
life. On the introduction of his last and memorable 
budget, the desire to hear Mr Gladstone was amazing. 
Strangers, with members' orders, took their places as 
early as nine a.m., and, for the first time since he had 
left it, Lord Brougham occupied a seat in the House 
of Commons. 



6 * 



VI. 



JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. 



Some few years back, while the An ti- Corn-Law agi- 
tation was yet in its infancy, and being fought with a 
fierceness almost incredible in these dilettanti days, 
when in agricultural circles no language was consider- 
ed too contemptuous for its supporters, in a small vil- 
lage in one of the midland counties an unknown in- 
dividual was delivering an address on the all-absorbing 
theme. He was dressed in black, and his coat was of 
that peculiar cut considered by the worthy disciples of 
George Fox — alas ! how falsely — as a standing protest 
against the fashions of the world. The lecturer was 
young, square built, and muscular, with a broad face 
and forehead, with a fresh complexion, with " mild 
blue eyes," like those of the late Russian Nicholas, 
but, nevertheless, with a general expression quite suf- 
ficiently decided and severe. As an orator the man 
did not shine. His voice was good, though somewhat 
harsh ; his manner was awkward, as is the custom of 



JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. 85 

the country, and the sentences came out of his mouth 
loose, naked, and ill-formed. He was not master of 
the situation, yet he wanted not confidence, nor matter, 
nor words. Practice it was clear was all that he re- 
quired. The orator felt this himself. He told his 
audience that he was learning to speak upon the ques- 
tion, and that he would succeed in time. That he did 
learn, that he did succeed, is obvious when I mention 
the fact that the speaker was no other than John 
Bright, M.P. for Birmingham. 

It is one of the effects of a popular agitation that it 
elevates for a time into equal importance the true man 
and the false. Both alike are strong in the exposure of 
practical anomalies or injustice — strong in the power of 
uttering for the dumb multitude what it travails in agony 
to declare — strong in the sweet voices of the sovran 
mob. The hour makes the man. In its tumult, and 
excitement, and uproar, like the spectres on the Broc- 
ken, he seems twice his ordinary size. Poor, pitiful, 
small, weak-minded creature though he be, for a time 
he wields a giant's power, and speaks with a giant's 
voice. For a time of each tribune of the people it is 
emphatically declared — ■ 

" In him Demosthenes is heard again, 
Liherty taught him her Athenian strain. " 

The Sacheverells, the Lord George Gordons, the 
Wilkses, the orator Hunts, the Feargus O'Connors and 
Daniel O'Connells, have each seemed to the people, 



86 MODERN STATESMEN. 

delirious with the intoxication of the time, what Ste- 
phano seemed to Caliban, a very god. The hour past, 
the tumult calmed, the angry voices stilled, men's eyes 
opened, the dilated demagogue dwindles into its or- 
dinary insignificance. Alas ! poor Yorick, where be 
his jibes and gibberings ? It is a painful process this 
state of collapse. To have been floated into public life 
on a public agitation, and to continue to float when 
that agitation has ceased, when the political world is 
dull as the weeds that rot on Lethe's shore ; to play 
Othello when Othello's occupation is gone, requires an 
unusually strong brain and brave heart. Mr Bright 
has gone through all this and succeeded ; nay, more, 
has triumphed, and by this triumph has placed him- 
self foremost among the statesmen of the age. 

I scarce believe, with Robert Owen and the moderns, 
that all men are equal, and that the only difference 
between a great man and a little man is that one is born 
on a pedestal and that the other is not. Still it is a 
great advantage to be born on a pedestal. With an 
infatuation unparalleled amongst savages and incredible 
in a people who profess to believe the Bible, we have 
so crippled the democracy, that when it enters into the 
arena with aristocracy it does so at tremendous odds. 
To attain his position John Bright has injured his 
health and shortened his days. Men like Lord John 
Russell and Viscount Palmerston attain a superior posi- 
tion by just sufficient healthy labour to lengthen theirs. 
They are born on the pedestal, and not placed there by 



JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. 87 

merits of their own. Few of our noble statesmen would 
have been there unless born there. Either the energy, 
or the time, or the patience, or the talent to secure a 
position would have been wanting. To emerge from 
the mob, to rise from the respectable dead level of the 
Smiths, Browns, Joneses, and Robinsons, to get the 
advantage over them by the head and shoulders, is a 
Herculean task. In the first place, the men who are 
on the pedestal look on contemptuously if you try to 
put yourself on an equality with them. In the second 
place, the Smiths, Browns, Joneses, and Robinsons will 
do all that they can to prevent your achieving a higher 
position than themselves. The very class for whom 
you labour will deem you impertinent, and damn you 
with faint praise. Only a remarkable man could thus 
shake off all obstacles and climb the steep 

"TSThere Fame's proud temple shines afar." 

"Whatever may be the feeling out of doors, it will not 
be denied that John Bright has succeeded in doing this 
in the House of Commons and amongst his peers. No 
one ever heard him in Parliament without feeling that 
he is a power in that House ; yet such a position was 
one no one would have prophesied for him a few years 
since. Everything was against him when he was first 
returned as member for Durham. All his antecedents 
were precisely those most calculated to excite opposi- 
tion and contempt. He was not merely not a landlord, 
but he was a cotton lord. He was not merely not of the 



88 MODERN STATESMEN. 

Church, of England, but of the church whose harmless 
peculiarities have been more laughed at than its virtues 
admired. He was not merely one of the Anti-Corn- 
Law League, but one of its greatest men. He was not 
merely at the head of an agitation thoroughly revolu- 
tionary, as it seemed to its opponents, but he was one 
of those who let it be clearly understood that that agi- 
tation, so far from being final, was but the means to an 
end. He not only had no respect for Parliamentary 
shams and conventionalities, but he expressed that 
contempt in a manner the most unpalatable and undis- 
guised. Nevertheless it was not long ere he compelled 
the House to do homage to his honesty and strength. 
At first it rebelled — it groaned when he got up — it 
emptied itself when he spoke ; but the House, if it 
looks kindly on aristocratic imbecility, will not long 
refuse to sanction democratic capacity and pluck. The 
House is generous, and has a thorough appreciation of 
a man ; and the result is, that now, as far as it is con- 
cerned, Mr Bright has nothing to fear. He may 
damage himself out of doors ; he may offend a people 
warlike in its instinct in spite of cotton-growing Man- 
chester ; he may alienate the cultivated mind of the 
country by his grovelling theory of a nation's life ; he 
may arouse, and justly, the hostility of the press, by 
the degrading mission which he would chalk out for 
it. He may make people very angry by his praise of 
the Emperor Napoleon and his readiness to sacrifice 



JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. 89 

Savoy. But he has taken honours in the senate, and 
there his position is secure. 

How is this ? In London, generally, Mr Bright is 
not a popular man. In what is considered good so- 
ciety it is hinted that he is a demagogue, and that his 
dangerous mission is to set the lower classes against 
the upper ones. People tell you that on the platform 
Mr Bright is a very different and much bolder man 
than on the floor of St Stephen's — a criticism which, 
however, maybe passed on every public man, inasmuch 
as platform speaking aims at creating popular en- 
thusiasm, while oratory in the House of Commons is 
of a more business-like and practical character. It is 
undeniable, however, that just at this juncture the 
opinions of Mr Bright are those of a minority. His 
peace views are decidedly at a discount. His devo- 
tion to the material interests of the nation is carried to 
an extreme, and is somewhat repulsive to those who 
believe that man does not live by bread alone. His 
pugnacity, reminding one of the celebrated remark of 
the late Lord George Bentinck, that if he were not a 
Quaker he would be a prize-fighter, has been an of- 
fence to the many who are prone to sing : — 

" Let lis alone ; what pleasure can we have 
To war with evil ? Is there any peace 
In ever climbing up the climbing wave ? " 

To all such, — to all who believe in the traditions of 



90 MODERN STATESMEN. 

the past, — to all who would rather endure a wrong 
than fight with it, — to all who would take the world 
as they find it, and only smile when told that their idols 
are wind-bags which would collapse only with the 
prick of a pin, — Mr Bright is a constant source of un- 
easiness and irritation. Now, in London especially, 
these classes are numerous. London people are well- 
to-do ; they soon make money ; they soon rise to the 
dignity of a brougham and a country-house ; they soon 
learn to give good dinners and to eat them. And men 
in this position, when they have done their day's busi- 
ness in the city, only desire ease and rest out of busi- 
ness hours. In the provinces it is different; there, 
Paterfamilias, as soon as he puts up his shutters, or 
locks up his warehouse, is sure to have some philan- 
thropic, or religious, or political employment ; a Lon- 
don political lecturer is coming, and he must take the 
chair ; or a Ragged School is to be formed, and he is 
to be the Treasurer ; or a Mechanics' Institution is in 
difficulties, and he has to show how the requisite funds 
are to be obtained. These are the men who rally round 
John Bright ; but they are scarce in London, and yet 
John Bright, their representative, is honoured in the 
House of Commons. Why ? The answer is soon given. 
Come with me into the Strangers' Gallery, and look 
hard on your left. About the middle of the third 
bench of the gangway you see a vigorous-looking man 
in black. What a contrast he presents to the mass 
around ! Lord Bacon deemed himself ancient when he 



M.P. 91 

was thirty-one. Mr Bright is, then, more than ancient, 
but he is in the prime of life nevertheless. The debate 
has been drawing its slow length along, and weariness 
is on every face. Small men have been on their legs. 
The Boeotians — the Newdegates and Spooners, and 
others — have been uttering sentiments childish and 
common-place ; or an official underling, with languid 
oratory, and much allusion to blue-books, has essayed 
to show that everything governmental is as it ought to 
be, that the right man is in the right place, and that 
everything is for the best ; or my Lord Palmerston, 
with his usual nonchalant air, has contended that no 
great harm has been done, and that if there had it did 
not matter much. Up rises Mr Bright, with a voice 
something of a scream, and rashes into the very heart 
of the subject — scornfully tossing on one side, as irre- 
levant, the platitudes of preceding speakers. The 
question, whatever it may be, is taken up manfully and 
boldly. There is no display of fine learning — no 
Latin quotation — no subtle disquisition — no elaborated 
climax — no polished peroration. There is no attempt 
to evade the difficulties of the question ; on the con- 
trary, the speaker seems to delight in them, as an 
Irishman will fight for fun. He states them in all 
their naked literalness, and wrestles with them as an 
intellectual athlete. I do not say Mr Bright is always 
in the right ; I believe he is often in the wrong, and 
none can scorn more than I the Manchester policy as 
regards peace and war — a policy which, as Mr Dis- 



92 MODERN STATESMEN. 

raeli truly remarked, would degrade our ancient mon- 
archy into a third-rate republic — a policy repugnant 
to the national pride and sense of honour — a policy 
oblivious of glorious traditions and ancient fame. But 
Mr Bright is in earnest — he means what he says ; you 
see that the speaker has heart as well as brain, and on 
he goes right to the mark, uttering honestly and plainly 
his thoughts, calling a spade a spade, however contrary 
that may be to parliamentary etiquette and usage. 
There are times when he attempts a loftier strain, when 
he becomes even eloquent, and appeals to the con- 
sciences of men of all parties, and carries with him 
the hearts of all. At such times Mr Bright's earnest- 
ness is overpowering. You cannot resist its impetuous 
course, and the House, that feels rightly, if it votes 
wrongly, is completely subdued. On more than one 
occasion, when Mr Bright has risen to speak, has there 
been 

" Silence, deep as death, 
And the boldest held his breath 
For a time." 

This was especially apparent a session or two back, 
during the Indian debates. I never heard more 
effective speeches delivered by any man, and I think 
the general opinion coincided with my own. Mr 
Bright was well up in his subject. India can produce 
cotton. Manchester needs cotton. Hence it was Mr 
Bright spoke with such vehemence, and passion, and 
power. How great the contrast between a modern 



JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. 93 

House of Commons and an ancient one — between 
Bright and Burke ! It was an ancient dynasty over- 
thrown ; an ancient people oppressed ; a multitude 
numerous as the sands upon the sea-shore, wasting 
away beneath British injustice ; another Verres harass- 
ing an imperial Sicily, that excited the imagination 
and fired the heart of Mr Burke. It was because a 
splendid opportunity of growing cotton for Manchester 
was lost, that Mr Bright bore down upon the govern- 
ment with resistless force. The stand-point of the one 
was chivalrous and classic, of the other modern and 
commercial. Sneer at it as selfish if you will, but is 
it not the truer one of the two 1 All men act from self- 
ish motives, — the Christian who flies from the wrath to 
come, as much as the spendthrift who squanders, or 
the miser who saves. As I write, I read in the Times 
the report of a sermon preached at the consecration of 
Tiptree Heath Church, by no less a distinguished 
divine than Dr Croly. The Doctor's aim was to show 
that if a nation feared the Lord it would prosper, and 
hence the propriety of the nation supporting a religious 
establishment. Give your money to the Almighty 
because He will pay it you back with interest. Such is 
the modern gospel. If it be true that we can only attain 
to an enlightened selfishness at the best ; and if it be 
true, as Mr Bright believes, that the Manchester policy 
as regards India would bring with it an immense 
amount of good ; it, at any rate, must not be despised 
for its selfishness, and surely, at any rate, may chal- 



94 MODERN STATESMEN. 

lenge a comparison with the Derby policy, or the 
Palmerston policy, or that of the Whigs. As regards 
India, it is clear that, had the Bright policy prevailed, 
we should have had no Indian mutiny. 

<e Mr Bright," says Mr G. R. Francis, in his careful 
estimate of the orators of the age, " may be said to 
have been dragged upwards by Mr Cobden in his 
rapid and remarkable ascent to fame and notoriety. 
Had he been left to pursue his path alone it is more than 
probable that he would never have emerged from the 
dead level of society, or that if he had attained any emin- 
ence at all, it would have been to achieve a distinction 
not more illustrious than that of the most noisy and arro- 
gant orator of a parish vestry, in whom strength of lungs 
and an indomitable determination not to be outbullied, 
are the most prominent qualifications." How foolish all 
this seems, read by the light of the present; but when 
Mr Francis wrote, such was the general feeling. And 
now, like another Warwick, Mr Bright stands, — a set- 
ter up or puller down of kings. When Lord Derby is 
in office the Whigs are indignant, and declare that he 
has formed an unnatural alliance with Mr Bright. 
When he supports Lord John Russell, the Conserva- 
tives hint at another Lichfield compact. Independent 
Radicals, men whose self-love suggests leadership, inti- 
mate that they differ strongly from the member for Bir- 
mingham. Yet I am much mistaken if that honourable 
gentleman do not act a conspicuous part in the House 
for many years to come. As old statesmen pass away — 



JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. 95 

as old prejudices are forgotten — as Mr Bright himself 
mellows with years — as his views form with growing 
experience, leadership and office must fall to his lot. 
Even by this time is his great heresy, during the Cri- 
mean War, forgotten if not forgiven. Wise men now 
fail to perceive that for the anxiety then en dured — for 
the treasure then wasted — for the blood then spilt as 
water — for the heroism then displayed — for the national 
enthusiasm then created, we have received an adequate 
result. 

The return of Mr Bright for Birmingham after 
Manchester had rejected him, indicates a certain 
amount of virtue. It indicates Reform and Peace. It 
says to a man like Lord John Russell, standing trem- 
bling at the work of his own hands, " O thou of little 
faith, wherefore dost thou doubt ? " and it bids our 
most warlike remember that England by interest, by 
policy, by ten thousand considerations more or less 
pressing, is bound to keep the peace with all the 
world. 

The Times is occasionally very angry with Mr 
Bright, yet he has never said harder things of the 
aristocracy and the British Constitution than the Times, 
If you turn to the Saturday Review, you learn there is 
not a man in office who is not a fool. Hear our officers 
in the army and navy. According to them our rulers 
are blind, and the country is going headlong to the 
devil. It was only the other day that a military man 
assured us that the most conservative of officers were 



yb MODERN STATESMEN. 

fast becoming radicals in consequence of their disgust 
at the waste and mismanagement in high quarters. If 
Mr B right's object be a good one, let him have the 
same licence allowed to others. Public agitation re- 
quires enthusiasm, and exaggeration is the necessary 
result. All members of parliament on the platform 
speak in a different manner to what they do in the 
House, and this is still more the case with the Radical 
Reformer, since on the platform he publishes his ex- 
treme views, but in the House of Commons, where 
there is a majority against him, he is compelled to take 
what he can get. If Reform is required, — if a further 
extension of the suffrage be a duty, — if it be true that 
in the counties the tenant farmers are under the influ- 
ence of their landlords ; or as Lord Derby, when Lord 
Stanley, said, you can always tell the politics of the 
representative of a county if you know the politics of 
the leading landlords, — if our borough constituencies 
be what they are, at Wakefield, and Gloucester, and 
elsewhere, he who would endeavour to wipe away 
from us this reproach and shame, and suggests reform, 
is acting a patriot's part ; and the men who stand by 
the present system, who shut their eyes to its defects, 
who cry " esto perpetua," are the real fomenters of 
class disunion and revolution. Can any one doubt 
that the majority of men, whether in the House of 
Commons or elsewhere, act from interested motives ? 
If so, why should Mr Bright be sent to Coventry for 
saying so ? Mr Bright is as interested as others, but 



JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. 97 

he represents a class who have been denied their 
rightful position in politics, to whom it is of actual 
consequence that taxation be lightened and commerce 
freed — a class to whom Great Britain must look more 
and more to find employment and sustenance for her 
swarming sons. The charge of self-interest comes 
with an ill grace from lawyers, who move heaven and 
earth to prevent law-reform, or from landlords, who 
sing with might and main, 

" Let learning, laws, and commerce die, 
But give us back our old nobility." 

The perpetual abuse of Mr Bright in some quarters 
is ungenerous. Men who are dumb in his presence 
are ready enough to bark behind his back. However, 
from a hostile press and hostile orators, Mr Bright, if 
he be wise, will learn somewhat. " Caius Gracchus," 
writes old Plutarch, " was rough and impetuous, and 
it often happened that in his harangues he was carried 
away by passion, contrary to his judgment, and his 
voice became shrill, and he fell to abuse, and grew 
confused in his discourse. To remedy this fault he 
employed Licinius, a well-educated slave, who used to 
stand behind him when he was speaking, with a musi- 
cal instrument, such as is used as an accompaniment 
to singing, and whenever he observed that the voice 
of Caius was becoming harsh and broken through pas- 
sion, he would produce a soft note, upon which Caius 
would immediately moderate his voice and become 
calm." Our Caius may learn a lesson from him of Rome. 

7 



VII. 



THE TREASURY WHIPPER-IN. 



Once, and once only, Mr Gladstone was known to 
speak against time. The occasion was in the debate 
on the third reading of the bill for the Repeal of the 
Paper Duty. All at once it became apparent to the 
Government that they were in danger; by outward 
signs and symptoms it was made manifest to the most 
obtuse of them that their foes were more numerous 
than their friends, and that a division under such cir- 
cumstances would be fatal. Lord Palmerston, who 
has a happy faculty of sleeping all the evening like 
Lord North, was wide awake ; Lord John Russell 
displayed anxiety; Mr Gibson, it was very evident, 
was ill at ease, as were the rest of the gentlemen who 
generally sit in very ungraceful postures on the Trea- 
sury Bench. To be beaten was the destruction of the 
Palmerston Administration ; destruction of that admin- 
istration was to every individual member of it, for a 
longer or shorter interval of time — perhaps for ever — ■ 



THE TREASURY WHIPPER-IN. 99 

loss of place ; and loss of place means loss of influence 
— loss of rank — loss of salary — loss of everything the 
politician strives to gain. In such circumstances 
there is nothing like a Fabian policy, and there is 
nothing more desirable than a long speech. The 
man who speaks longest speaks best. Happily, Mr 
Gladstone was on his legs, and there is no man 
who has such a wonderful faculty of speaking as him- 
self, and on the occasion to which I refer the hon. 
gentleman very wisely exerted that faculty to the ut- 
most. He (says an eye-witness) started vigorously 
enough, dashed with impetuous brevity through a 
great part of the subject, on which he might have ad- 
vantageously insisted ; but all of a sudden he began 
to wind round and round, over and over again came 
the same arguments in almost the same words, and 
for once the Chancellor of the Exchequer was — not 
almost, but I should say quite — prosy. To an habitue 
of the House, however, the cause was obvious. The 
Treasury Whipper-in was seen flitting about in and 
out, backwards and forwards, to the Treasury Bench, 
with an anxious and perturbed aspect of countenance. 
Sir Wm. Hayter, too, was moving about very much 
as he used to do when he was in office — in fact, he 
was evidently imitating the retired tallow-chandler, 
who used to go down to the shop on melting days ; 
while ever and anon white-waistcoated gentlemen, 
evidently dragged from the opera Or evening parties, 
were silently filling the ministerial benches. The 

7 * 



100 MODERN STATESMEN. 

whip was severe and unrelenting. However, at last 
the Treasury Whipper-in entered the House, and sat 
down upon the Treasury Bench with an air of com- 
placent satisfaction — the thing was done — narrowly, 
but effectually ; and then the Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer sat down also. In spite of Mr. Disraeli's 
reply, all ground of anxiety had been removed, and 
the ministry had a majority — not a large one, but a 
majority, when they were on the verge of defeat. 
How was it that this defeat was averted, that the 
ministry were saved, that the bill for the Kepeal of 
the Paper Duty was carried ? The answer is — by the 
exertions of the Treasury Whipper-in. 

It was once my good fortune to behold Lord John 
Russell smile and carry on a friendly conversation on 
the Government benches of the British House of Com- 
mons. Generally his lordship is cold and dignified in 
his demeanour, as becomes a man who is part and 
parcel of that wonderful machine — the British Consti- 
tution. The individual with whom he was conversing 
was rather under the average size, of slim build, very 
plainly dressed, and with one of those fresh, ruddy, 
whiskerless faces which make even an old man look 
young. It was clear that he was a good Whig, and of 
an old family, otherwise Lord John would have been 
a little less friendly. It was also clear that he was in 
office, or he would not have been sitting by the side of 
premiers and Chancellors of the Exchequer ; and yet 
his was not a face familiar to me as a man who had 



THE TREASURY WHIPPER-IN. 101 

won his position by any talent, oratorical or adminis- 
trative, of his own ; the name of the gentleman was 
Brand — a reference to " Dod " informed me that he 
was the second son of the twentieth Baron Dacre ; 
that he was private secretary to Sir George Grey ; 
that he was " averse to large organic changes f 9 that 
he was returned for Lewes for the first time in 1852 ; 
and that on the formation of the Palmerston Cabinet 
he was promoted to the office held so long and ably by 
Sir William Goodenough Hayter. After all, the gen- 
eral reader is still in the dark with regard to Mr 
Brand. He says to me, " Here is a man, born in 
1814, in the prime of life, not memorable for any great 
work or act, yet you give him a niche in your gallery of 
modern statesmen. How is this ? What you quote 
from ' Dod ' in no way enlightens me." Wait awhile, 
my anxious inquirer. I frankly confess that, after all, 
you are very little the wiser when I give you Mr Dod's 
facts. There is a society called the Tract Society — of 
the merits or demerits of which it is not for me to speak 
here — the travelling agent of that society was an 
immensely stout man. On one occasion that agent 
called at a clergyman's house in a provincial town. 
The clergyman's daughter ran laughing into her 
father's study, " Papa, here's the Tract Society come." 
In the same way Mr Brand is that awful personage — • 
the British Parliamentary System. He smiles 
and you are returned for Rottenborough, and the 
newspapers trumpet the glorious triumph of liberal 



102 MODERN STATESMEN. 

principles. He frowns and you are unseated for 
bribery and corruption. Be on good terms with Mr 
Brand, and you are elected into the Reform Club ; 
you get that little place in the Circumlocution- office 
for your son ; your wife has a ticket for one of Lady 
Palmerston's brilliant assemblies. When the Duke of 
"Wellington said in the excitement occasioned by the 
passing of the Reform Bill, he did not see how the 
king's government could be carried on, he forgot Mr 
Brand. By the aid of Mr Brand nothing is easier. 
Sir W. Hayter, Mr Brand's predecessor, was a model 
in this respect, and still, I think, does a good deal of 
amateur whipping-in. If I could catch him a moment 
I would point him out. Here he is. " What, by the 
door ? " No, he is in the lobby ; no, he is gone into the 
House ; no, he is out. Ah ! here he comes ; but you 
can't see him, for he in the midst of a group. Bu^ 
see ! he has stepped on one side to read a note. That 
is he — that sharp-featured, active-looking man ! a cross, 
as it were, between a rollicking Irishman and an Eng- 
lish merchant, all the shrewdness of the one and the fun 
of the other ; in person square-built and not very tall, 
but ever agile, and seemingly a model of the art of 
perpetual motion. In the same way Mr Brand is al- 
ways on duty. You will see him in the lobby before 
the Speaker is at prayers ; after the Speaker has done 
his prayers ; long after the gas has been turned on, 
far into the night, ofttimes far into the early morn. 
Mr Brand dwells in the lobby. It is not known that 



THE TREASURY WHIPPER-IN. 103 

he sleeps anywhere, with the exception of forty winks 
on the Treasury benches, nor that he partakes of meals 
except during the parliamentary recess. He says to 
one, "Come," and he cometh — to another, "Go," and 
he goeth. He is friendly with every one, and manages 
to talk to a dozen people at once. He holds one by 
the button, he administers to another a dig in the ribs, 
at another he winks, another he accosts in a free and 
easy manner. He slaps the peers on the back, and 
shakes hands even with Irish M.P.'s. His duty is, as 
Canning — no fourth-rate man, as a contemporary ludi- 
crously calls him — said, " to make a House, and keep a 
House, and cheer the minister." On one occasion 
Canning wrote : — 

" Cheer him as his audience flag, 
Brother Hiley, Brother Bragge, 
Cheer him as he hobbles vilely, 
Brother Bragge, and Brother Hiley." 

Brothers Bragge and Hiley were the Treasury Whip- 
pers-in of their day. Mr Brand is, perhaps, the most 
powerful man in the House of Commons. Let him 
over-sleep himself — let him have a fit of indigestion — 
let him be laid up with the gout — and immediately 
the Liberal Cabinet is in extremis, and the nation is 
plunged into all the horrors of a crisis. How comes 
this about ? you very naturally ask. You tell me you 
do not hear of Mr Brand's eloquence ; you do not see 
his name in Hansard ; it does not seem to you that he 
shines in debate. Well, the answer to this question 



104 MODERN STATESMEN. 

will let you into one of the secrets of the British con- 
stitution — a secret that you will not discover, however 
attentively you may study Blackstone or De Lolme. 
Gentle reader, you cannot be so green as to suppose 
that, in any country under the sun, men are guided 
to their conclusions simply by means of the debates of 
public assemblies ; you cannot be so green even as to 
believe that these discussions have anything to do with 
the subsequent decision. Pre-eminently in the British 
House of Commons this is not the case, and the con- 
sequence is that the debate does not influence the de- 
cision, but is merely the apology for it. The premier 
makes his speech, and he leaves his whipper-in to 
make up the majority. Mr Brand is the Ministerial 
Whipper-in ; hence it is that he is always in the lobby 
finding pairs — laying hold of this — preventing that 
from escaping ; and that his means of communication 
reach to the clubs, to the opera, as well as to the 
smoking-room and library of the House of Commons. 
The fact is, we are governed by the whip ; nor could 
we wish otherwise. Mr Disraeli, in his Life of Lord 
George Bentinck, speaks of the creation of a third po- 
litical party as " a result at all times and under any 
circumstances difficult to achieve, and which had failed 
even under the auspices of accomplished and experi- 
enced statesmen." Sir Robert Peel understood this. 
In a letter written to Mr Gregory he says, " What 
must have been the inevitable fate of a government 
composed of Goulburn, Sir John Beckett, Wetherel, 



THE TREASURY WHIPPER-IN. 105 

and myself — supported by very warm friends, no doubt, 
but those warm friends being prosperous country gen- 
tlemen — foxhunters, &c. &c. ; most excellent men, who 
will attend one night, but who will not leave their 
favourite pursuits to sit up till two or three o'clock 
fighting questions of detail, on which, however, a 
government must have a majority, we could not have 
stood creditably a fortnight," — that is, in other words, 
the hon. baronet felt that his party would not respond 
to the whip. The French republicans failed because 
they could not understand this, and for a similar 
reason the Metropolitan Board of Works, and 
the respectable parish vestries of St Pancras or 
Marylebone, seem in a disorganised and chaotic state, 
and succeed in doing such little business. During the 
recent Reform Debates more than one effort was made 
to count out the House of Commons, and yet let 
there be anything supremely unimportant of a personal 
nature, such as that squabble between Messrs Hors- 
man and Walters, and the House is crammed in every 
part. When a discussion respecting our. three hun- 
dred millions of Indian subj ects is raised, I have often 
seen less than forty members present. One advantage 
of this is that even the dullest dog in the House gets 
his say, for if the House be thin — and why should any 
sane man be compelled to listen to a lawyer talking for 
promotion, or to a borough representative airing the 
dictionary for the exclusive benefit of his own consti- 
tuents ? — the Whipper-in knows where all his men are, 



106 MODERN STATESMEN. 

and will bring them up when the division bell rings 
and the serious business of the evening has commenced. 
Without the so-called whip, Parliamentary govern- 
ment is almost an impossibility — the assembly, with its 
eternal talk, would fall into contempt, and all power 
would pass into the hands of the Crown. Make the 
experiment on a small scale — get a hundred honest, in- 
telligent men together — each man with a theory of his 
own and a grievance, and what would be the result 1 
Why, that nothing whatever could be done. There are 
votes taken every night in which the majority of mem- 
bers take no earthly interest ; yet these votes are essen- 
tial to the carrying on of the Queen's Parliament. Now, 
in the House of Commons, by means of the party and 
the whip, actually some progress is made. Here, in 
England, so much business is taken off by the munici- 
palities, that our Parliament is far less laden than the 
French Assembly ; yet, if all our legislators were hon- 
est, independent freemen, disdainful of party and dis- 
obedient to this influence, we should split up into help- 
lessness and fatuity similar to that of the French. It 
is the application of the whip that makes the House of 
Commons a working assembly, and preserves us from 
the horrors of despotism. 

Dreamers and theorists — political babes and suck- 
lings — may tell me that a Whipper-in is the result of 
parliamentary corruption — that we should be better 
without him — that such as he are a fearful sign of the 
times ; but if jobs must be done — if little arrange- 



THE TREASURY WHIPPER-IN. 107 

ments must be made — if, in other words, people re- 
quire to be looked after, the Whipper-in is the man to 
do it. Parliament is a self-seeking assembly, and to 
buy every man at his own valuation would be evi- 
dently a bad bargain for the people. Indeed, the 
Whipper-in is most useful to his party. He will sup- 
ply Liberal candidates to any amount; he will judici- 
ously distribute the Government advertisements and 
patronage ; he will make the needful arrangements 
with the Opposition as to the public business ; he 
will reconcile uneasy consciences to the unpleasant 
task of renouncing in Parliament the pledges they 
made when out. I confess — unflinching patriot though 
I be — my mouth waters as I think of the good things 
the Whipper-in has at his disposal ; and I rush away 
from the lobby exclaiming, " Lead me not into tempt- 
ation : but deliver me from evil." 



VIII. 



JOHN ARTHUR ROEBUCK. 



Are there honest men in the world of politics ? and if 
so, are they the better or the worse for their honesty ? 
These are questions to be asked, and if yon will, an- 
swered ; or, to come to particulars, would John Arthur 
Roebuck have been more successful, as men reckon 
success, had he been less honest ? The honourable 
gentleman would reply in the affirmative. The public 
must form its own opinion. When the great Chatham 
entered the House of Commons, Walpole exclaimed, 
" We must muzzle that terrible cornet of horse." The 
muzzling process is believed to exist at this day. We 
have seen wonders effected, and we naturally suspect 
a cause. When Mr Bernal Osborne, after years of 
silence and peace, utters his wild shriek of liberty, we 
naturally come to a conclusion that his seat on the 
Treasury Bench is insecure. On Irish members the 
muzzling process is very apparent. Under its sooth- 
ing influence the roaring patriot aggravates his voice 



JOHN ARTHUR ROEBUCK. 109 

and sings very small indeed. But the man gets his 
place, and we clap our hands. In success there is 
manifestly a saving grace. If a man has that we 
honour him. We stop not to inquire how he has 
succeeded. If he has betrayed his party, if he has 
sworn oaths and broken them, if he has said one thing 
one day and another the next, if he has worn one face 
on the hustings and another in St Stephen's, he is 
honoured nevertheless ; just as people flatter the lucky 
speculator, the successful tradesman, the great mill- 
owner, and never stop to inquire by what sharp prac- 
tice, by what ingenious dishonesty, or gross fraud, the 
wealth thus venerated has been acquired. In these 
days it is not the rogues that walk in mud. Ah me ! 
but yesterday, in the slush and rain and cold, I met 
one born in humble life, but dowered with a beauty 
for which many a Belgravian lady would sell her soul. 
Vainly I looked for the loveliness of an earlier day. 
Care and want had furrowed her brow, and had thin- 
ned the luxuriant locks, and had dimmed the lustre of 
eyes once bright as pearls, and paled the red lips and 
rosy cheek. In this great city, where sin exists with- 
out the sense of shame, she had retained her honesty, 
but at what a price ! Quid rides ? as Mr Thackeray, 
with his immense erudition, comprising at least a part 
of the Latin Grammar, would say. I felt in that poor 
creature's presence as if at the shrine of a saint. Thus 
I do not indicate that Cato is an idiot because he is 
alone, poor, neglected, because his struggles have been 



110 MODERN STATESMEN. 

great and his successes small. A man who will find 
fault with all parties, will expose officials, will oppose 
himself to the prejudices and passions of the hour, will 
blame the narrowness of the Church, and yet at the 
same time express his abhorrence of the intolerance 
of dissent, cannot look for popularity. Nay more, if 
we suspect Cato of occasional injustice, if he himself 
evinces temper and passion, if he shows a sternness in 
some quarters where we should expect forbearance, 
and a forbearance where we should look for sternness, 
if he is occasionally conveniently dumb or inconveni- 
ently fussy, especially if he gets mixed up with a dirty 
job, like a Galway contract for instance, — if our Cato 
considers himself master of every subject, if he be al- 
ways obtruding himself before better men, like Talka- 
tive in the Pilgrim's Progress, exclaiming, " I will 
talk of things heavenly or things earthly — things 
moral or things evangelical — things sacred or things 
profane — things past or things to come — things foreign 
or things at home — things more essential or things 
circumstantial," — perhaps we shall understand how it 
is Cato is not held in more honour, and shall see that 
the public are not so much to blame as at first sight 
may appear. 

It is half-past four, and we are standing in the lobby 
of the House of Commons. A very little man, leaning 
on a stick, comes tottering towards us. He is shabbily 
dressed, and seems very, very feeble. Poor man, you 
piteously exclaim, why are you here in this unhealthy 



JOHN ARTHUR ROEBUCK. Ill 

atmosphere — in this fierce arena ? Why seek you to 
wrestle with these athletes when you were better at 
Malvern or Scarborough, or some other locality sacred 
to Hygeia ? Such are your natural reflections. They 
are not, however, those of the subject of them. His 
feeling evidently is quite otherwise. You can imagine 
him saying, " I am plain John Arthur Roebuck, friend 
of the people, advocate of progress, and champion of 
the rights of man. Out of the way, ye blind leaders 
of the blind ; are ye not, every mother's son of you, 
nincompoops, pudding-headed and asinine windbags — 
shams ? Have ye not blundered and placed England 
on the brink of perdition ? I say, go home, and I, John 
Arthur Roebuck, must save her, or she is lost for ever." 
It is true that when Mr Roebuck has had the field to 
himself he has not been eminently successful. He was 
Chairman of the Administrative Reform Association ; 
where is it now ? He was Chairman of the Western 
Bank — a bubble that has long been burst. He was 
Chairman of the Sebastopol Committee ; yet how im- 
potent were its conclusions ! He was one of the great 
men of the Gal way Steam Packet Company, and in 
some quarters a belief was entertained that this was a 
bubble. Surely a gentler style of criticism, a little less 
arrogancy of manner, a little less virulence of invect- 
ive, is becoming to a man whose failures have been 
so numerous ! 

Let me describe Mr Roebuck as I saw him on the 
night when he made his motion for the appointment of 



112 MODERN STATESMEN. 

the Sebastopol Committee. Imagine yourself, intel- 
ligent reader, in the Speaker's Gallery. Glancing 
down the gangway, on the Ministerial side, there stands 
a little man with a hooked nose and a face indicative 
of weakness and premature decay. The tones of his 
voice are faint and sickly; his action is feeble. He 
forgets what he is going to say in a manner painful to 
witness. He rubs his hand across his forehead, and 
tries to catch the missing train of thought — but in vain ; 
it is gone from him for ever. The House listens 
kindly, and cheers, but all in vain. There he stands — 
he whose winged words were sharper than arrows, 
whose sting was that of an adder, whose imperious 
tone, his hand pointing all the while, as if to say, 
" Thou art the man," drove conscience home to the 
most careless, and made the most phlegmatic writhe, 
who seemed to scalp his victim, as it were, and the fear 
of whom was a principle in many a heart — there he 
stands with opportunity, the grand thing he had been 
panting for all his ambitious life, at length his own. 
The time at length came for which he had prayed since 
earliest youth — a grand drama, and a grand part to act 
in it for himself. And oh ! the mockery of life, the 
power gone, and the golden moments lost for ever. 
The sight was a sad and an affecting one, and when 
poor Roebuck sat down, for a wonder for once the 
House was subdued, and hushed and still. Pity for the 
speaker allayed all hostility. It seemed as if no one 
cared to create a debate — as if the spectacle of a popu- 



JOHN ARTHUR ROEBUCK. 113 

lar statesman struck down in the moment of what was 
to have been his triumph was of its kind as sad as that 
of a gallant army mouldering away beneath adminis- 
trative imbecility and neglect. 

At a public meeting held not very long since at 
Sheffield, Mr Roebuck endeavoured to answer the 
question how it was that he, unconnected with the 
great parties in,the State, not of the great families, un- 
distinguished by wealth, unknown to fame, should 
have won the approbation and confidence of his coun- 
trymen. Warming with his theme he exclaimed, " It 
is not talent, it is not name, it is not rank, it is not 
wealth, it is stedfastness in that path which I had 
marked out for myself in the beginning. I am proud 
to say that in the year 1832 I published a programme 
of the opinions I then held. I had prepared myself 
for a public life, I had then formed my opinions, and 
I consigned them to paper. I printed them, and to 
them I now adhere. That which I said in 1832 I say 
now, and it is my firm and my stedfast adherence to 
the opinions I then expressed which has now won for 
me the confidence of my countrymen. Going into 
Parliament unknown, unsupported, and only recom- 
mended by that true friend of the people, Joseph 
Hume, I determined not to ally myself to either of the 
great parties then dividing the House of Commons 
and the kingdom. To that rule I have adhered through 
life, and no man can now say I am either Whig or 
Tory." Roebuck, then, may be described as a 



114 MODERN STATESMEN. 

Radical politician, but of a Radicalism of so singular a 
character as to induce him to side and seat himself with 
the Opposition rather than with the supporters of 
Government. He sits now on the gangway on the 
Opposition side. Gentlemen whose opinions are sup- 
posed most to resemble his own he cannot abide. It 
seems strange now that he has even acquired the re- 
putation he has ; yet there was a time when many 
competent judges of all the orators of the House de- 
lighted chiefly in John Arthur Roebuck, and deemed 
the skill with which he unmasked a job — the delight 
with which he brought it before the House — the in- 
vective which he directed against all parties connected 
with it, inimitable. On the whole, now, Mr Roebuck 
may be pronounced a failure — that is, other men, less 
gifted, less honest, less popular, have been more suc- 
cessful. The cause is chiefly in an unhappy tempera- 
ment ; a temperament which makes him always go in 
an opposite direction to what is required. To get Mr 
Roebuck on your side you must beg him to speak 
against you. Sydney Smith used to say of certain in- 
dividuals, Mr S. is a clubable man. Now the House of 
Commons after all is a club, and Mr Roebuck is not a 
clubable man. This is the primary cause. Another 
is the vanity which makes him insist on playing first 
fiddle, Aut Ccesar aut melius is his motto. 

Again, Mr Roebuck has exhibited another great 
fault, he has not trusted in himself. He has shown 
the vanity, and, I may add, the weakness of a woman. 



JOHN ARTHUR ROEBUCK. 115 

His duel with Mr Black of the Morning Chronicle, his 
endeavour to get the Times censured in the House for 
a description of the honourable gentleman which every- 
one who heard it confessed to be singularly truthful 
and exact, his impotent attempt to put Mr Disraeli 
down when the latter had but just made his parlia- 
mentary debut, his vindictive attack, only very re- 
cently, on Dr Mitchell, the ex-Bodmin M.P., who 
plainly confessed to the House, and in a way which 
gained for him lasting honour, that it was true that he 
had agreed to retire from the representation of his 
borough rather than stay to fight the petition which 
had been presented with regard to his seat, for the sim- 
ple reason that he was a poor man comparatively 
speaking, and had not the money requisite for a par- 
liamentary defence ; such things as these deservedly 
lower Mr Roebuck's position in the House, and with 
all right-thinking men all over the country. Were Mr 
Roebuck less impulsive, less irritable, less jealous of 
himself, he would spare his friends and supporters the 
repetition of such painful scenes. After enjoying the 
courtesies of the French at Cherbourg, could anything 
be more execrable than his insulting references to the 
women renowned all the world over for fascinations, 
which might even, for a moment have soothed Mr 
Roebuck into civility and good temper ? It is not thus 
that public men should act, and sure are we that the 
public man who thus acts must have great talents, 
great industry, great honesty, to hold up his head in the 



116 MODERN STATESMEN. 

face of such things. Granting Mr Roebuck to have 
done the state some service as a politician and a man 
of letters, though in this latter capacity he has not 
greatly shone in his day, it is obvious that his worst foe 
has been himself, and that if he had, like all truly great 
men, been above the suggestions of a childish vanity, 
he would by this time have taken a higher stand. His 
success must be in himself, in the verdict of his own 
heart, in the consciousness that he has been true to his 
mission, that he has not swerved aside for man's smile 
or frown. Political independence is rare, and is chiefly 
affected by eccentricities such as the late Colonel Sib- 
thorp, or Mr Drummond. In the case of Mr Roebuck 
it is often an obstacle in the path of political progress. 
In spite of Mr Roebuck's pertinacious egotism, that 
makes him represent himself as the utterance of the 
public, he must feel that he is not that. 

Mr Roebuck's references to himself at all times are 
amusing. We infer, as we glance at his speeches, 
public education has prospered because it has had Mr 
Roebuck's support. On a very recent occasion the se- 
verest censure he could pass upon Lord John Russell 
was, that he had failed to consult Mr Roebuck. I am 
the good dog Tearem, says Mr Roebuck, who guard 
the lambs who would otherwise be torn to pieces by 
the ravenous wolf. I am the man, he told the Sheffield 
people the other day, who says hard things, as if hard- 
hitting was the sine qua non of statesmanship. A man 
in public life should have no mock modesty ; in Mr 



JOHN ARTHUR ROEBUCK. ] 17 

Roebuck's case bashfulness has not certainly been 
carried to excess. An oracle, it was said, warned the 
Athenians against a man who alone was opposed to 
the whole city. Phocion claimed the honour of such 
singularity for himself. When one of his proposals 
was received with unusual approbation, he turned 
round to his friends and asked whether he had let any- 
thing escape him that was wrong. Bishop Thirlwall 
tells us, " In his speeches he carefully avoided all 
rhetorical embellishments, which he had learnt from 
Plato to consider as a kind of flattery unworthy an 
honest man, and studied a sententious brevity," which, 
however, was so enlivened with wit and humour, as 
often to make a deeper impression than the most 
elaborate periods. It was even observed by one of his 
adversaries that Demosthenes was the best orator, but 
Phocion the most powerful speaker. And Demosthenes 
himself, it is said, trembled for the effect of his elo- 
quence when Phocion rose after him, and would 
whisper to his friends, " Here comes the hatchet to my 
speech." Mr Roebuck is, and he seems to pride him- 
self on it, the Phocion of the House of Commons. He 
must stand alone. He can bear no rival near his throne. 
He can be as severe on John Bright as Mr Disraeli, 
on friends as foes. The right of private judgment, 
carried to excess, is the vice of modern society, ac- 
cording to Mr Gladstone's teaching in his " Church 
and its Relation to the State," and by no one living 
statesman is this right more rigidly guarded, or occa- 



118 MODERN STATESMEN. 

sionally more inconveniently displayed, than by Mr 
Roebuck. 

His non-success, considered in a worldly point of 
view, may be in some degree the result of the fact that 
he has stedfastly set his face against complying with 
the conditions which insure success. No one ever 
asked him to play the part of the tribune of the people. 
The parties in the House are Whig and Tory, and 
the electors out-of-doors are either the one or the 
other. It is true the names are rarely heard, but the 
essential division remains the same. There were 
Radicals when Mr Roebuck took his seat for Bath. 
As he tells us, he has not changed in his opinions 
since 1832. Well, when he first entered Parliament, 
there had been the greatest political convulsion known 
in England since 1688. Democracy, flushed with 
triumph, like a giant refreshed with wine, trod the 
land. The privileged classes were in despair, and 
peers and bishops trembled for their very heads. The 
reaction had not set in which in so short a time nearly 
undid all the good that the Bill had effected. The 
mistake of John Arthur Roebuck was in supposing 
that it never would — that the Reform Bill had usher- 
ed in a new era — that the days of corruption and ig- 
norance and darkness were past — that Parliament was 
to be a grand reality, and that henceforth the people, 
enlightened, passionless, high-toned, indignant at all 
petty meannesses, impatient of all party frauds, were 
to rule the land. In this estimate, in sorrow and shame 



JOHN ARTHUR ROEBUCK. 119 

be it known, Mr Roebuck made an egregious mistake. 
To struggle up from the people, not by pandering to 
the ruling classes, nor to the prejudice of the mob, 
nor to the caprices of the peers, is a Herculean task. 
The great Sir Robert Peel is an admirable illustration 
of a successful tactician. He sought power, we grant, 
for public not personal ends : yet how did he acquire 
that power ? By the most unscrupulous pandering to 
the passions and prejudices of party. What Protest- 
ant prejudices — what Tory prejudices — what Protec- 
tionist prejudices — received, the sanction of his support, 
and yet what ruin he wrought to the very prejudices 
he had not feebly advocated, but solemnly and at times 
sanctimoniously upheld. Still he succeeded, and be- 
came England's model statesman. Roebuck has been 
the reverse of all this. Not only has he not supported 
national prejudices, but he has declaimed against them 
as illogical and absurd. This is a bad plan. If you 
wish to become a popular statesman, as a democrat, 
attack the aristocracy ; as a dissenter, expose the 
failures of the State Church ; as a churchman, exhibit 
the weakness and bitterness of dissent ; or, as philan- 
thropy is in vogue, become the furious partisan of some 
of the movements by which a remedy is vainly sought 
for evils that have resulted from the complications of 
ages, and you are sure of a party to blow your trumpet 
and to follow in your wake — to swear that you are a 
heaven-born statesman, and that you will be immortal. 
Roebuck has been a standing protest against all this. 



120 MODERN STATESMEN. 

He lias carried this protest to an absurd extent ; he 

has become the victim of this feeling. A life spent in 

unsuccessful invective has soured him. He reminds 

us of the hero of Tennyson's " Vision of Sin/' as he 

exclaims 

" Unto me my maudlin gall, 
And my mockeries of the world." 



IX. 



LORD STANLEY. 



Gibbon tells us, " of the various forms of government 
which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary mon- 
archy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule. 
Is it possible to relate, without an indignant smile, 
that on the father's decease the property of a nation, 
like that of a drove of oxen, descends to his infant son, 
as yet unknown to mankind and himself? " The lan- 
guage of Gibbon is not altogether inapplicable to 
hereditary statesmanship. Why should the tenth 
transmitter of a foolish face be a ruler over men whose 
natures he cannot understand and with whose wants it 
is impossible for him to sympathize 1 Surely the son 
of a lord is born no wiser, abler, stronger-minded than 
his fellows. Is he not very often born considerably 
less so, and, at any rate, does he not labour under one 
great damning disadvantage, that he has no whole- 
some struggle from his youth upwards ; that his im- 
petuous will has never been disciplined by wise con- 



122 MODERN STATESMEN. 

trol; that the very conditions — I mean the struggle 
with hard necessity and adverse circumstances without 
which most men would pass their days in epicurean 
ease — by means of which it is given to a man to be- 
come great, are denied him from his birth. An Eng- 
lishman crawls in the dust before a lord. When can 
he hear the stern and unwelcome voice of truth? 
How can he understand the condition-of-England 
question ? Poverty is almost romantic in the eyes of 
the rich. A great duke lives in Brighton because he 
cannot afford to live in one of his own palatial resi- 
dences. The poor man is not thus encumbered, — he 
has no need to trouble himself with settlements and 
lawyers ; nor is he required to subscribe to the county 
charities — to preside at anniversary dinners — to dance 
attendance at court, — nor has he his every movement 
recorded in the morning papers. See Strephon on a 
bank reclining, in a costume very Arcadian, and very 
much like what we see at the Adelphi, on the occa- 
sion of a rustic fete. Hear him sing, 

" At ease reclined, in rustic state, 
How vain the ardour of the crowd, 
How low, how little are the proud, 
How indigent the great ! " 

Who would not be Strephon rather than your much- 
to-be-pitied lord ! Indeed so over-weighted is the 
latter that he generally performs even his political 
duties by proxy. But we are entering on a question 



LORD STANLEY. 123 

respecting which there may be different opinions. We 
imagine all will admit that Lord Edward Henry Stan- 
ley, eldest son of the Earl of Derby, born at Knows- 
ley, Lancashire, 1826, is the ablest argument we have 
in favour of hereditary statesmanship. Prima facie, 
a man who has an impediment in his speech, so that 
his utterance is unpleasant and imperfect, stands a 
poor chance of being elected into an assembly one 
great qualification for which is more or less of oratori- 
cal power. To read a speech is yet more an outrage 
on our English ideas ; yet Lord Stanley did this not 
very long since. To be a refined thinker — to go down 
to the core and kernel of things — unfits a man for the 
use of the usual party expressions, which unless you 
use you may vainly long for a parliamentary position. 
James Stuart Mill, our greatest writer on political and 
social science, has not a seat in the House of Com- 
mons ; our profoundest Greek historian, Mr Grote, 
we know declined to stand for Westminster, on ac- 
count of the impossibility of coming to a good under- 
standing with its noisy and vehement democrats. 
Lord Stanley's statesmanship is of a similar high 
order. Yet, when Lord George Bentinck died, he 
was elected his successor as M.P. for Walpole's favour- 
ite borough of King's Lynn. How is it that Lord 
Stanley has thus made a good start in public life ? 
The answer is soon given — he is the son of his father, 
and that father, one of England's leading landlords ; 



124 MODERN STATESMEN. 

that father, if not one of the most eminent politicians 
of the age, at any rate is one of the most eloquent 
speakers in any legislative assembly in the world. 

In his " Memoirs of the E-eign of King George the 
Second/' old Horace Walpole, then Earl of Orford, 
apologizing for the unfavourable light in which he 
places many of his former characters, says : — " If, after 
all, many of the characters are bad, let it be remem- 
bered that the scenes I describe passed in the highest 
life, the soil, the vices I like." This is a little severe, 
and, let us hope, not quite so true in the days of Queen 
Victoria as King George. Bat when a young noble- 
man scorns delight, and lives laborious days, it must 
be admitted on all sides he deserves well of his country. 
From his youth upward, Lord Stanley has done this. 
He was a pupil of Dr Arnold, of Rugby ; and we all 
know how, when Dr Arnold's pupils came up to Ox- 
ford, there was found to be in them a thoughtfulness, a 
conscientiousness, a sense of duty, rare in men so young, 
and by means of which they were favourably contrasted 
with the alumni of other public schools. This was a 
confession, as we all know, fairly and honourably made 
by Arnold's opponents. In Lord Stanley's case, this 
result is very manifest ; and no doubt it was this that 
led him — while the unfledged lordlings of his own rank 
and standing were wearing white waistcoats, and writ- 
ing very indifferent poetry, and astonishing heaven and 
earth by Young England affectation — to leave home, 
and, by means of foreign travel, to enlarge his views 



LORD STANLEY. 125 

and liberalise his ideas. As soon as he was of age, 
Lord Stanley spent some time in Canada and America. 
His next step was to the West Indies, to study the re- 
sults of negro emancipation, and the condition of the 
sugar plantations. He next paid a visit to the East, 
and was still in India when nominated, in March, 1852, 
Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the 
Derby Ministry. These visits have borne fruit. Lord 
Stanley learnt much ; got rid of many exploded ideas, 
became wiser, as all men should do who stand face to 
face with the truth of things and the facts of life. As a 
social reformer, Lord Stanley is widely known. Few 
men have done more with regard to the encouragement 
of mechanics' institutes, the establishment of public 
libraries, and the promotion of popular education. 
When, in 1858, he was made President of the Indian 
Board, by his introduction of the competitive system 
into the service he gave an impulse to education among 
the middle classes which it is almost impossible to 
over-estimate. His philanthropy is thus of the highest 
and most practical character — of that character which 
acknowledges that human affairs are conducted on ge- 
neral principles, that suffering and human degradation 
are, as a rule, the result of a violation of law, and that 
the remedy is to be found, not so much in Acts of Parlia- 
ment, or temporary expedients, as in the enlightenment, 
moral and intellectual, of the sufferers themselves. 
Many are the nostrums of our day. In vain are baths 
and wash-houses, in vain are flannel- waistcoats and 



126 



MODERN STATESMEN. 



thick boots, in vain are good meals and a good atmo- 
sphere, in vain are Saturday half-holidays and an 
abridgment of the hours of labour, in vain are the 
wonderful mechanical improvements of our day, if the 
people suffer from lack of knowledge, and the night of 
ignorance lies heavily on the land. As a politician, 
Lord Stanley is hard to define. Dod describes him as 
a Conservative, but in favour of the admission of Jews 
to Parliament, of the Maynooth grant, and of the ex- 
emption of Dissenters from church-rates. When his 
father has been in .office, Lord Stanley has been 
one of most valuable supporters in the Lower House. 
Yet whert, in 1855, the death of Sir W. Molesworth 
created a vacancy in the Colonial-office, Lord Palmer- 
ston, sensible of Lord Stanley's talents and popularity, 
offered him the seals of that department. More than 
once Lord Stanley has been named as a probable 
holder of office under the present premier ; and if, at 
the last election, he had come forward as a candidate 
for the city of London — and a numerously-signed re- 
quisition was got up to that effect — it is not clear but 
that he would have been selected by the City in pre- 
ference to one of the present M.P.'s. The fact that 
such a belief existed indicates Lord Stanley's liberality. 
With another well-known Liberal of a still more ultra 
character, Lord Stanley is supposed to have held ami- 
cable relations. In the House of Commons' smoking- 
room the interviews between Lord Stanley and John 
Bright are said to have been of a very frequent and 



LORD STANLEY. 127 

confidential nature. They both of them have this in 
common — that they belong to the higher order of 
statesmen, though their respective standpoints are 
wide as the poles asunder. They may yet sit side by 
side on the Treasury Benches. Lord Stanley must, 
sooner or later, cut the old country Quarter Sessions 
party that feasted so greatly at St James's Hall the 
other day, under the presidency of Lord John Man- 
ners. As it is, his temporary alliance with them has 
damaged him, for people find it difficult to make allow- 
ances for a man of trained judgment, and with an 
understanding well cultivated, doing anything so un- 
natural as leading the forlorn hope of a retrograde party 
in church and state, — and surely the Indians, native or 
otherwise, have reason to complain that because some 
poor Whigs wanted to get back into office, Lord Stan- 
ley was driven out, and his place supplied by a third- 
rate official like Sir Charles Wood, a man who is always 
— what Lord Stanley never is — common-place. This 
leads me to the great characteristic of Lord Stanley. 
He has less of mere partisanship and more of elevated 
principle, perhaps, than any other man in Parliament. 
He has thought out his own conclusions ; he has 
strength of mind sufficient to rely on them. He is 
superior to the prejudices of the hour. Never does 
he stoop to pander to the delusions of the mob ; he is 
the last man in the world to talk what the Americans 
call " Bunkum." He has a system to fall back on, and 



128 MODERN STATESMEN. 

this is a great advantage in these days of incoherent 
action and chaotic legislation. 

Come into the House of Commons. Some grand dis- 
play of force is expected — some question touching the 
hearts and arousing the passions of men is being dis- 
cussed — some crisis is at hand. On the front bench of 
the Opposition, seated between Disraeli and Sir John 
Pakington, is a young-looking, slender figure, much 
more plainly dressed than the great exponent of the 
Asiatic mystery, and by no means so elaborately neat 
as the worthy late First Lord of the Admiralty. His 
features are small, his complexion is light, his counte- 
nance pale, his figure slim, and the expression of his 
face slightly haughty ; but this is not discernible in the 
Strangers' Gallery. You see, however, that he is an in- 
tensely earnest listener, that not a word of the debate 
escapes him, that he occasionally takes notes, and oc- 
casionally speaks to his friends around him, as if in 
consultation. It may be that he rises to speak, and 
your curiosity is aroused. When you hear the Speaker 
announce Lord Stanley's name, you lean forward, for 
the House cheers, and the speaker is evidently a 
favourite. What ! you cannot hear a word, though 
every one is silent as a cat ? Ah ! now you will hear, 
the voice is filling the place, and, by-and-by, will float 
up to you. Alas ! alas ! there is a sound, it is true, as 
of a man speaking ; but it may be Greek, or Hebrew, 
or Chaldee, that he is speaking, for aught you know to 
the contrarv. Nature has not been so bountiful to the 



LORD STANLEY. 129 

son as to the sire, yet you will see that the House 
listens with interest, that the argument tells, and when 
you read the speech in the Times next day, you will 
think that the speech was one of the best of the night. 
It is a fine illustration of the triumph of mind over 
matter, and shows, as we have said, that statesmanship 
may exist, of the highest qualities, without the pos- 
sessor of them being an orator at all. Out of doors, 
this would be a defect ; it would unfit a man to suc- 
ceed in making new truths popular. In the House of 
Commons, where declamation avails but little, it is a 
slight drawback, which is soon overlooked, when a man 
works so hard and so successfully, as patriot and 
statesman, as Lord Stanley does. 

Poor Bruff, who died prematurely the other day, 
tells us : — 

" My Lord Tomnoddy's the son of an Earl, 
His hair is straight hut his whiskers curl ; 
His lordship's forehead is far from wide, 
But there 's plenty of room for the Drains inside. 
He writes his name with indifferent ease, 
He 's rather uncertain ahout the d's, 
But what does it matter,'"if three or one, 
To the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son ? " 

Lord Stanley does not belong to this class. He ac- 
cepts his rank and station, and at the same time its 
responsibilities. He is as much aware of the duties 
as the rights of property, and he is willing to lend the 
prestige of his name to institutions not exactly orthodox 
in conservative eyes. As regards sire and son, the 

9 



130 MODERN STATESMEN. 

ordjer of nature seems to have been completely reversed. 
The son has an old head on young shoulders — he has 
been ever wise, and prudent, and thoughtful beyond 
his years. The father, when a commoner in the Lower 
House, always managed to keep Ireland in hot water 
— to goad on the colonies almost to the verge of revolt ; 
and in the Upper House has been great in winning 
barren victories, and in leading his party into office 
merely to lead them ingloriously out again — after the 
commission of a few jobs such as those at Dover or 
Galway. Describing the present Earl when in the 
House of Commons, a writer in 1839 says, " Stanley 
hits very hard : but he does not inflict so much as 
he" feels. See him when he has sat down and some 
opponent is lashing him in his turn. At the com- 
mencement he probably sits in a lounging posture, 
with his feet cocked up upon the table, an attitudinous 
elegance which he probably learned in America, and 
with an expression of mockery and supreme contempt 
upon his features. As his castigator proceeds, how- 
ever, the feet are taken down and forced under his 
seat — he tosses up his head, whispers to his neighbour, 
laughs, then seizes some parliamentary paper, and 
bending his elbows on his knees pretends to be deeply 
absorbed in it — but the smarting soon becomes intoler- 
able, and he either springs forward and, without the 
slightest reason, calls the speaker to order, or, after 
starting to his feet, suddenly restrains himself, throws 
himself back again, opens and shuts his knees, and 



LORD STANLEY. 131 

affords proof, that cannot be mistaken, of the severity 
of his sufferings, and the agony of his impatience." 
The present Lord Stanley is the reverse of all this — 
of course something is due to training. The Earl of 
Derby tells us he was born in the pre-scientiflc era. 
Lord Stanley has had an advantage in this respect — the 
politics of the present times are also calmer and less 
fraught with personal collision ; but I imagine nature 
has cast the son in a more philosophical mould than 
the eloquent and impulsive sire. 



THE RT. HON. T. MILNER GIBSON, M.P. 



Did my readers ever travel in the east of England ? — 
a part of the world not suggestive of the fact that the 
wise men came from the East, but nevertheless a land 
of honest women and brave men — a land flowing with 
milk and honey in the shape of strong ale, turkeys, 
geese, and sausages. In the old coaching days, one 
of the finest sights in London in the winter time of 
year was to walk along Whitechapel and to meet the 
Essex, and Suffolk, and Norfolk coaches, all laden, 
not with live passengers, but dead stock. There were 
four horses ; there was a coachman — perchance, a 
guard; but no coach was visible — not the ghost of a 
passenger — one mass of feathers and skins, of all 
colours, was the coach, all jumbled and jammed to- 
gether like an omelet, or one of Turner's pictures. 
There were turkeys on their way to grace the table of 
a London alderman; there were pheasants, whose 
sweet fate was to be picked by the dainty fingers of 



THE RT. HON. T. MILNER GIBSON, M.P. 133 

London's fairest daughters; anon out of this mass of 
fine feathers emerged a goose so corpulent as to remind 
the gazer of the poet's touching lines : — 

" Of all the poultry in the yard, 
The goose I have preferred — 
There is so much of nutriment 
In that weak-minded hird." 

Or again, you saw a hare, but yesterday leaping along 
in lusty life — which had been shot and despatched to 
a friend in town, who, as he ate it — whether jugged, 
or hashed, or stewed — whether done into soup, or 
cooked a la Derrynane, or roasted, as is the manner 
of some, with Devonshire cream — would think, not 
ungratefully, of the donor and of the pleasant week 
or two spent, in the bright days of summer, under his 
hospitable roof. Ah, well ! the old coaches are gone, 
but the east still abounds in good things, and is a land 
rich in agricultural produce ; but the people are not a 
" fast " people, like those of London and Manchester. 
It was seldom you heard of Chartism there ; and as to 
Socialism, the people yet shudder at the sound. The 
landlords are Conservative, the county representatives 
are Conservative, and a Conservative M.P. seems to 
be as natural a production of the soil as a Suffolk 
paunch or a prize bullock. In the thickest of this 
Conservative Paradise is a village called Theberton, in 
which was the residence of a Major Thomas Milner 
Gibson, who in the year 1807 had a son born to him. 



134 MODERN STATESMEN. 

The father was but little known. I presume he was 
a country gentleman, and lived after the manner of 
country gentlemen, when George III. was king ; and, 
undoubtedly, his son was brought up in his own 
image, and after his own fashion. 

The old divines feell us, " Man proposes and God 
disposes." You bring up your son to be a miser — he 
becomes a spendthrift ; to be steady, he becomes gay ; 
to be a Dissenter, and he becomes a Puseyite ; to re- 
vere the memory of Calvin, and he vexes you and 
confuses himself with Thomas Carlyle. Young Milner 
Gibson had talent, ambition, and a good estate. Had 
he been a poor man he would have gone to the bar — 
been, possibly, Attorney- General to Sir Robert Peel — 
for Sir Robert was partial to rising talent- — and been 
lost in the confusion which came upon the Conserva- 
tive party when Lord Derby retired from office. As 
a country gentleman, Mr Gibson felt bound to serve 
his country ; and as a country gentleman, to stand 
by his order. Hence, he began life as a true blue. 
I remember Sir Thomas Gooch, the Gaffer Gooch of 
one of Macaulay's political ballads, warranting him to 
be a regular Conservative colt ; but it is dangerous 
to hazard anything where women, wine, and horses 
are concerned. The promising Conservative colt soon 
changed its colours, and was found running on the 
other side. This was in 1839, when Mr Gibson re- 
tired from the representation of immaculate Ipswich, 
and was defeated on again offering himself to his late 



THE RT. HON. T. MILNER GIBSON, M.P. 135 

constituents. Mr Gibson's principles were changed — 
his career was not altered. At Cambridge, where he 
had been educated, and taken a wrangler's degree, he 
appeared as a candidate, but with little success. It 
seemed as if the reward of conviction was political an- 
nihilation. However, this was not for long. A public- 
spirited man with money is sure to get into parliament, 
if not for one place, why then for another. 

In 1841, Manchester needed a representative, and 
Milner Gibson was returned for the seat, which he 
held with such honour till Manchester in its frenzy 
was guilty of the absurdity of stoning its prophets. 
When the Anti-Corn Law agitation came, Milner 
Gibson was one of its most successful orators, and suc- 
ceeded in maintaining a position second, and only se- 
cond, to Cobden and Bright. In 1846 the Whigs, 
anxious to please the people, and having personal ob- 
jections to Cobden and Bright, made Milner Gibson 
Vice-President of the Board of Trade, but the Demo- 
cracy of Manchester grew jealous of the divided affec- 
tions of their member, and Mr Gibson resigned the 
office in 1849. The Corn-Law agitation over, Mr 
Gibson, far from used up, sighed for fresh worlds 
to conquer. At this time the Society for the Repeal 
of the Taxes on Knowledge was in need of an efficient 
parliamentary advocate. Mr Gibson took that respon- 
sibility on himself. Season after season he caUed the at- 
tention of the House to the subject. He prevailed at 
length upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to repeal 



136 MODERN STATESMEN. 

the duty on advertisements. In 1855 lie succeeded in 
abolishing the penny stamp on newspapers; and even 
when we had still war budgets, Mr Gibson tried hard 
for a repeal of the tax on paper. Mr Gibson certainly 
has not been rewarded for this as he ought. He was 
indefatigable in the prosecution of the repeal of the 
taxes on knowledge, and the society was nothing with- 
out him. It was Milner Gibson, the member for 
Manchester, who conferred on it respectability and 
power, who presided at its annual meetings in the me- 
tropolis, who got the public to attend them, who put 
the facts of the case in a telling way before the House 
of Commons, and by his tact and bonhommie secured 
parliamentary votes, which compelled the Chancellor 
of the Exchequer to interfere. The advocates of the 
repeal of the taxes on knowledge painted a glowing 
picture of the advantages that should ensue when those 
taxes were repealed. Cheap newspapers were the 
want of our times. It was because there were no 
cheap newspapers that the gaols were filled, and that 
the public-houses did a great business ; it was because 
there were no cheap newspapers that, to the dim and 
downcast eyes of the people, Knowledge 

Her ample page, 
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll ; 

and it was because Mr Gibson took up the agitation 
that it triumphed, in spite of the opposition of the 
Times and the larger section of the press. And yet 
when the victory was won, I know not whether Mr 



THE RT. HON. T. MTLNER GIBSON, M.P. 137 

Milner Gibson scarce got thanks ; certainly no public 
meeting assembled to do him honour, and no testimo- 
nial was collected in his praise. He had fought and 
won the battle of the people, and the people said never 
a word. It is well -that the honest statesman labours 
for something more enduring than their hollow breath. 
In the increased supply of cheap literature — in the 
healthy character on the whole of that literature — in the 
consequent elevation, mental and moral, of the masses 
— in the stimulus thus given to the car of progress — 
Mr Gibson must alone seek his reward. It was the 
boast of the late Sir Robert Peel that by removing the 
shackles of trade — that by bidding commerce be free 
— that by giving to the men and women of this country 
cheap bread ; he should have established his claim to 
be remembered gratefully long after he himself should 
have passed away. Lord John Russell has more than 
once greeted with approbation those well-worn lines in 
which the statesman is represented as filling the land 
with plenty, and as reading thanks in the nation's eyes. 
In a similar manner Mr Gibson may consider that he 
has deserved well of his country, for a land lying in 
ignorance, perishing for lack of knowledge, its mental 
eye dark and blind, can never become great, or noble, 
or free. Such as Mr Gibson may even claim the re- 
spect of the most timid Conservatives. No one fears 
a reading public — a public that does not read may 
be soon worked up into delirium and madness. At 
such times the demagogue may be mistaken for a sage, 



138 MODERN STATESMEN. 

but the reading public sees him to be what he is. The 
cheap press, like IthuriePs spear, makes him reveal 
himself in his true and hideous light. 

Let us follow the Ashton M.P. into the House. 
When he sat with the Manchester party, by the side 
of Cobden and Bright, he looked little like a Manches- 
ter man himself. There was about him far more of the 
air of the country gentleman and scholar; and you 
would imagine that he had got there merely for a chat, 
as his light, gay air by no means harmonized with the 
serious appearance of his colleagues. Mr Gibson 
always looks good-tempered and pleasant, and has been 
and is now rather a handsome-looking man ; and not 
being blessed with large whiskers, has still rather a 
young and fresh appearance ; but since he has become 
President of The Board of Trade and one of the Cabi- 
net, he certainly has not improved in appearance. On 
the night when Lord Palmerston moved his celebrated 
resolutions I thought Mr Gibson looked peculiarly 
uncomfortable and disappointed, and I candidly con- 
fess no one likes to be balked of victory in the very 
hour of anticipated triumph. No doubt Mr Gibson 
went into the ministry to repeal the Paper duties. A 
reactionary House of Commons, and an innovating 
House of Lords, however, decided otherwise at the 
eleventh hour. With brown curly hair, light com- 
plexion, well-shaped features, and blue eyes, Mr Gib- 
son was as fine a specimen of the Conservative colt 
as you would wish to see, with the frank and winning 



THE RT. HON. T. M1LNER GIBSON, M.P. 139 

manner of the English gentry of the better class. 
Nothing seemed to put him out ; and even the coun- 
try gentlemen, who regarded him with aversion, — 
who considered him as a traitor to their cause, — who 
remembered how he had been born and bred in their 
camp, and had now gone over to the enemy, — could 
not find it in their hearts to be very angry with a man 
who, after all, had been one of themselves. Mr Gib- 
son's manner is conciliatory. He belongs to the ex- 
treme party, without seeming to be extreme. His 
voice is pleasant ; it is not harsh, like Cobden's, or 
passionate, like Bright's. If you differ with him, you 
don't feel inclined to quarrel with him. Some men in 
the House are very apt to excite antagonism by the very 
sound of their voice. Mr Bright is an instance, Mr 
Newdegate is another ; Boebuck makes you feel wasp- 
ish immediately he is on his legs. It is a pity Mr Gib- 
son does not speak oftener. Certainly office has a 
great tendency to make men dumb. 

The Cobdenic policy, as illustrated in the person of 
Mr Gibson, loses much of its unpopular air. During 
the Russian war, Mr Gibson was, comparatively speak- 
ing, quiet. He did not prophesy, as Bright did, that, 
in a couple of years' time, it would land us in civil 
war ; nor did he, like Cob den, misinterpret history, or 
write letters republished with glee at St Petersburg. 
Even while heading the crusade for the repeal of 
the taxes on knowledge, he did not, with Cobden, hold 
up trumpery American papers as superior to such 



140" MODERN STATESMEN. 

papers as the Times ; nor did he, with Mr Bright, 
charge the Daily News with ingratitude, because it 
dared to be independent. Even the Saturday Review 
has dealt gently with Mr Gibson ; and yet quiet, plea- 
sant-looking as he is, Mr Gibson can do a great deal 
of damage. He upset Lord Palmerston's first cabinet. 
To be sure the latter had his revenge, for he appealed 
to the country and got Manchester to reject her 
worthiest representatives. As member for Ashton- 
under-Lyne, Mr Gibson reappeared, and when the 
aged Premier got Manchester to endorse him as a first- 
rate liberal, Mr Gibson accepted a seat in the Cabinet. 
Mr Gibson has the credit, deservedly, of being one of 
the best tacticians in the House, but it is the opinion 
of some who know a little about these things, that in 
the ever-agile Premier he has found his match. 

At the same time that Mr Gibson may not share 
the. odium of the leaders of the Manchester party, he 
may not share their praise. He is a courageous advo- 
cate of progress, a flattering representative of Man- 
chester, and a man of great platform power ; but he is 
not, like Bright, a peace advocate on principle ; nor 
could he have sacrificed everything, as Cobden did, 
to fight the battle of Free Trade. Mr Gibson's debut 
in the House was fortunate : it was on a subject on 
which he knew much. Some business connected with 
the Baltic had been occupying the attention of the 
House. Mr Gibson had just been up there in his 
yacht; consequently, he knew more about the subject 



THE RT. HON. T. MILNER GIBSON, M.P. 141 

than any one else, and he told what he knew in a 
manner at once to win the ear of the House. On 
other matters, when he has spoken, he has heen 
equally at home. He hits the feeling of the House 
in his speeches. He does not seem particularly in 
earnest, or particularly extreme. He is not savagely 
severe, or sublimely eloquent. You do not feel that 
he is trying to make a great speech, and to be quoted 
as a second Fox or Burke. Even when he acts the 
part of the tribune of the people, he has the air of a 
gentleman, and there is good-nature in his voice, and 
a merry twinkle in his eye. As long as democracy 
rejoices in such a representative, patricians need not 
shrink from it, or old ladies dream of Mirabeau and 
Robespierre. No noble lord need fear the working 
classes under the leadership of Mr Gibson. He, by 
birth, is a gentleman— was brought up at Cambridge 
— is the owner of a large landed estate ; and if he 
listens to the manufacturers, and is on good terms with 
the bugbear of political dissent, and occasionally ap- 
pears on the platform at St Martin's Hall, and casts 
in his lot with Cobden and Bright, it must be re- 
membered that he at least has, even in the eyes of 
Spooner and Newdegate, a stake in the country, and 
is of the class who are supposed to be alone qualified 
for statesmanship, and office, and political rank. 



XI. 



SIR CHARLES NAPIER. 



You are standing in the lobby of the House of Com- 
mons about 4 p.m.— just as the Speaker has passed by 
in all the pomp and majesty due to his awful rank, 
and are watching the varieties of costume and figure 
in which honourable M.P.'s rejoice. We will suppose 
it is the middle of the summer, and that the younger 
M.P.'s are got up in the most expensive and fashion- 
able style. No one on the face of the earth dresses 
better than the English gentleman, and if you want 
to see the finest specimens of that splendid animal, you 
cannot do better than stand, for an hour or two, where 
now, mentally, we have placed you. A very old and 
curious figure approaches : it is that of an old man — 
short and stout, very bent, leaning heavily on a stick. 
Look at the man's dress. He does not ruin himself 
with tailors' bills. That old straw hat on his head is 
dear at a shilling ; that tweed slop never could have 
cost more than a pound when new ; that yellow waist- 



SIR CHARLES NAPIER. 143 

coat and those white trousers evidently have seen 
better days. Look at the man's face. It is broad, 
cheerful — like that of most sailors — almost rollicking, 
in its expression ; some old captain, you say, come to 
look about him. But look ! he has passed the door- 
keeper. Surely that latter gentleman will call him 
back ! By no means. The rough old sailor is no 
other than Sir Charles Napier. 

" Ben Block," says Tom Dibdin, "was a veteran of 
naval renown." The same may be said of Sir Charles 
Napier ; but- Sir Charles Napier has this advantage 
over Ben Block — that he got into Parliament, and has 
a name as familiar in St Stephen's as on the quarter- 
deck. 

Sir Charles Napier has good blood in his veins. He 
is a descendant of the inventor of Logarithms ; was 
born on the 6th of March, 1786 ; entered the navy at 
the age of thirteen ; was a post-captain at twenty- three, 
and in 1815, when the Euryalus, which he commanded, 
was paid off, was made a C.B. In 1829, he went to 
sea again, in the command of the Galatea — of the 
seedy, dirty, appearance of which naval men still talk. 
In 1830, Sir Charles took command of the fleet of 
Don Pedro, and captured the fleet of Don Miguel, off 
St Vincent, and thus helped to establish that precious 
Spanish government which is a scandal to our age. In 
the Syrian war, in 1840, Napier was commodore under 
Sir Robert Stopford, who commanded in the Mediterra- 
nean. Here he did considerable service. The landing 



144 MODERN STATESMEN. 

at D'Journie, the capture of Beyrout and Sidon, and the 
bombardment of Acre, were all owing to his instru- 
mentality ; and at Alexandria he astonished the 
liberating squadron by running in under a flag of 
truce, and concluding a convention with Mehemet Ali, 
out of his own head, which, in spite of its irregularity, 
was confirmed by the authorities at home. He returned 
to England full of popularity, and was brought into 
Parliament as member for Marylebone. He had before 
that time unsuccessfully contested Portsmouth and 
Greenwich. He took the command of the Mediterra- 
nean fleet, and retired from Parliament. The Russian 
war broke out. He went up the Baltic, and did 
nothing. The men of Southwark thought he was 
badly used, and sent him into Parliament. 

The author of Singleton Fontenoy gives us a graphic 

sketch of Sir Charles as a sailor. Singleton is off 

Beyrout, and is sent on board a very dirty ship for 

orders. " Singleton, having copied the order, went on 

deck and ordered ^is boat to be called along-side. 

While waiting for it he saw a figure emerge from the 

. cabin under the poop. There was a sensation on deck, 

and my hero perceived at once that the figure was that 

of a Great Man. He was dressed in a rather seedy 

uniform, and had an awkward stoop. His face was 

i eccentric, but expressed power. He crossed his hands 

behind his back, and began to pace the deck with a 

• gait that was as remarkable as everything else about 

him. It was Benbow with a dash of Garibaldi." Sir 



SIR CHARLES NAPIER. 145 

Charles also has painted a portrait of himself, but in a 
more flattering style. In 1851 he collected and re- 
published all the letters he had sent to the " Times" 
the " Sun" and other newspapers, under the title of 
" The Navy, its Past and Present State. " It is hardly 
possible to conceive anything more vain-glorious than. 
Sir Charles's assertions relative to himself. A few 
paragraphs taken at random will suffice. " Had I not 
displayed energy and boldness, the probability is that 
this country would have been involved in war and our 
foreign policy overthrown/' " I dethroned Don 
Miguel. Had the battle of Cape St Vincent been lost, 
Don Miguel would have been on the throne of Portu- 
gal, the dynasty of Louis Philippe shaken to its centre, 
and most probably Lord Grey's administration." " I 
upset the Grand Prince of Lebanon, the ally of Me- 
hemet Ali, defeated Mehemet's son, and drove his 
troops out of the mountain." " My services are unsur- 
passed by those of any admiral on the list — I think I 
may say, without fear of contradiction, that they have 
had more influence on the state of Europe than those 
of any other officer in the navy." " The battle of Cape 
St Vincent changed the dynasty, as well as the whole 
political face of Europe." But for him, Sir Charles 
assures us, " the Syrian expedition would have failed, 
Acre would not have been attacked, war with Erance 
would have been inevitable, our policy overthrown, 
and with it the Melbourne Administration." Such is 
the gallant admiral's modest assurance ! 
10 



146 



MODERN STATESMEN. 



Some people call Sir Charles the modern Bombastes. 
He reminds me of a humbler character, one Thomas 
Codd. The reader asks who was the last-named 
gentleman ? I will endeavour to answer that question. 
There lived, many years ago, in a certain city in the 
south of Ireland, an odd personage whose real name 
was a mystery, but who was popularly known by the 
name of Tom Codd. Now, like Sir Charles, he be- 
lieved that all the great events that had taken place in 
Europe during his own time were owing to him. 
He was consulted by every statesman in Europe. 
From him the Duke of Wellington derived the plans 
of his most successful campaigns. It was his advice 
that prevailed in the councils of Europe. The wags 
of the city in question encouraged the poor man in 
his delusions to such a pitch that he verily believed 
the world could not go on without him. He preserved, 
says the writer from whom I take my account, his 
delusions to the last moment of his life, and he died in 
the full belief that he was the wisest and most influ- 
ential man of his age. In naval matters, to compare 
great things with small, Sir Charles is, I fear, another 
Tom Codd. 

Sir C. Napier is a capital illustration of the truth of 
the old adage, "Second thoughts are best!" South- 
wark elected him at the bidding of the publicans' paper, 
and because Southwark deemed he had a grievance. 
It is to the credit of Southwark that it should thus 
sympathize with what it deems the victim of a wrong ; 



SIR CHARLES NAPIER. 147 

but it would be to the credit of the Southwark collect- 
ive brains if they recollected that impulse is by no 
means a safe rule of action. A wider knowledge of 
human nature should have taught Southwark that the 
man who is eternally boasting his own merits has 
but few merits ; and that the man who wails his 
wrongs on the house-top generally has few wrongs to 
be redressed. It is true, on their own merits modest 
men are dumb. It is true that the woman who comes 
to you in the street, with an expression of abject misery 
in her face, with three children in her arms, whom she 
pinches all the.while, and with a tale of villany on the 
part of a monster of a husband, who has left her all 
forlorn — is a female of questionable repute, and has 
hired the children at a moderate sum per day ; it is 
true that if, in your morning walks, you give a cripple 
as you deem him something for charity, in the evening 
the impostor, over a jollier supper than your limited 
means will enable you to procure yourself, will be laugh- 
ing at you as a precious flat. The public is constantly 
imposed on. It is often giddy and thoughtless as a 
child. It is the loudest rant the ten-pound house- 
holder or otherwise will most rapturously endorse. It 
is only education and intelligence that can teach men to 
detect the cloven foot under the mask of the popular 
tribune. 

Look at Sir Charles ; what has he done that he 
should take the vacant place of Sir W, Molesworth ? 
Sir W. Molesworth — no one can deny it — was a states- 

10* 



148 MODERN STATESMEN. 

man; Sir Charles is nothing of the kind. He is a 
sailor in search of promotion. Not engaged in his 
profession, he had a seat in Parliament. Immediately 
professional advancement was offered him, his seat in 
Parliament was resigned. A war breaks out ; amidst 
a wonderful flourish of trumpets Sir Charles is de- 
spatched to the Baltic ; the Reform Club gives a dinner 
to the naval hero, who declares over his cups that he 
will either be at St Petersburg, or in a place that 
shall be nameless, in a month. The time passes, and 
Sir Charles is neither in one place nor the other ; the 
nation strains itself to listen, but no sound of victory is 
borne to us over the tideless waters of the Baltic, and 
at length Sir Charles returns home — Sir James Gra- 
ham would not let him fight the Russians, and Sir 
Charles hauls down his flag, and tells us he is an in- 
jured man. Sir Charles is lifted into Parliament, to 
have his revenge and impeach Sir James; but the 
House listens, laughs when the old admiral begins 
swearing, and finally is counted out. Oh what a falling 
off is there — what a lame and impotent conclusion ! 
Sir Charles tells us he had a bad crew: it is a bad 
workman that quarrels with his tools. I question 
whether the infamous press-gang gave # Nelson a better 
lot. That fleet that lay as summer in the Baltic, 

" Idle as a painted ship, 
Upon a painted ocean," 

was got together with some difficulty, cost the nation 
some money, and was expected to do something. Lord 



SIR CHARLES NAPIER. 149 

John Russell, it seems, on one occasion intimated that 
Sir Charles evinced a want of discretion. Certainly 
this was not the case as regards the Baltic campaign. 
An excessive discretion is a little out of place in war. 
An excessively discreet man would not go to war at 
all — would take to farming or shop-keeping rather 
than become a warrior, and go in for glory and cannon- 
balls. Sir Charles — if the Sir Charles of old — would 
have won, by this time, either a peerage or Westminster 
Abbey. Sir Charles had more valour, we fancy, in his 
youth. 

We pass on to other days : to Nelson expecting 
every man to do his duty ; to Blake leaving politics to 
the Parliament, and telling the seaman, " It is not our 
business to mind state affairs, but to keep foreign- 
ers from fooling us ! " In these days of magnificent 
promises and puny performances — when our most for- 
midable sea-captains are only formidable with their 
pens, when their greatest achievement is to keep a 
fleet out of harm's way, when the finest fleet the world 
ever saw sails upon the Baltic as if it were so many 
yachts on a pleasure trip — it is well to look back to 
the time when English ships were not afraid of stone 
walls ; when the Dutch were driven from the sea — 
when Spain, and France, and Italy trembled at the 
sight of the red cross of the Commonwealth— when 
Algerine pirates, of bloody lives and natures, freely 
gave up Christian captives — when, as a writer of the 
time expresses it, " England was everywhere held in 



150 MODERN STATESMEN. 

terror and honour ! " The review will measure the 
exact difference between a Blake and a Napier; it 
will do more — it will indicate, in one department of 
public life, a falling off piteous and sad indeed ! 

Sir Charles's popularity, we fear, is of an evanescent 
character. It was the war with Mehemet Ali that 
made Sir Charles popular. John Bull loves to have 
a finger in every pie. Sir Charles came victorious 
out of the affair, and we welcomed home the conquer- 
ing hero, forgetful all the while that we had thus de- 
stroyed what promised to have been a rising empire, 
and which, taking the place of Turkish weakness 
and venality, would have been in time a natural barrier 
to Russia in the East, and which would have saved 
us a world of trouble, already endured or about to 
come. 

The old school of sailors finds an admirable repre- 
sentative in Sir Charles. Young fellows who went to 
sea at an early age, from schools in which they learned 
nothing or next to nothing, during our fighting days 
were in great demand, and did the state good service. 
They are in these days of education and competition 
in the civil service very rare ; but of the old school it 
may be remembered that the first gentleman of the age, 
as his toadies called him — that poor bloated, dissipated 
prince, at whom we are all so ready to throw stones — 
while deeply engaged in solving the question as to 
the cut and colour of the garments of naval officers, 
gave up the attempt in despair, exclaiming, with an 



SIR CHARLES NAPIER. 151 

oath, that dress them how you will, it is impossible to 
make them look like gentlemen. Well, these men 
never turned out great statesmen ; even the gallant 
Nelson did not shine when he exchanged his proper 
business for diplomacy, and considerations of national 
policy. Jack ashore is proverbially easily duped, and 
is much given to play the fool. But, unfortunately, 
an admiral, like a lawyer, must have a place in Parlia- 
ment. Unless he has one he has little chance of 
promotion ; and now-a-days, as the liberal is the win- 
ning side, the number of adherents to popular princi- 
ples is encouraging or alarming according to the point 
of view. 

Sir Charles is a rough, jolly, free-and-easy old gen- 
tleman. He will shake hands with his sailors ; he will 
rush into a peace meeting, as I have seen him do at 
Edinburgh, and make a good fight on behalf of a stand- 
ing army and navy ; he will stick to his own opinion, 
however unpopular, and will, in very plain language, 

bid you be if you do n't like it. He is very 

honest, considering that he represents a popular 
borough. It is true, on one occasion he did preside 
at a Sunday School meeting (the dissenters are strong 
in Southwark), but he boldly voted against the bill 
for the repeal of the Paper Duty, instead of, like the 
majority of M.P.s on that occasion, sending up the 
bill with a small majority as a hint to the Lords to 
throw it out. Sir Charles Napier does not act in that 
way. You never catch him at anything sneaking or 



152 MODERN STATESMEN. 

underhand. If he is in error he will frankly confess 
it. He candidly tells us he is ashamed of -that part he 
took in the Syrian war. Bat, after all, honesty, and 
bluntness, and dash do not constitute a statesman. 
Other qualities are requisite. To these Sir Charles 
lays no claim. I fear Sir Charles is indebted, after all, 
for his public position, such as it is, chiefly to his own 
efforts to secure employment and place, by his con- 
stant attacks on Government, and by his obstinate pro- 
clamation of his merits. That he will pass away and 
be forgotten — that he will leave no impress on his age 
— that he will never rise to the rank of statesman, is 
very clear. Indeed, he makes no impression as he 
talks. No one listens to his speeches ; they are all on 
the same subject, in almost the same words, and are all 
set to the same tune. There is nothing like leather, is 
the one unvaried cry ; and, to judge from appearance, 
it really matters little to the gallant admiral whether 
men listen or not ; whether they approve or condemn. 
There he stands drawling away, on the same seat in the 
gangway as Mr. Horsman, just below the Manchester 
party. M.P.s study parliamentary reports, get up 
and go out, find their way into the lobby or the smok- 
ing-rooms, but Sir Charles is not discouraged, and will 
have his say — 

" He is an ancient mariner, 
And he stoppeth one of three," 

says Coleridge. The Ancient Mariner of the House 
of Commons is not so fortunate, I question if he 



SIR CHARLES NAPIER. 153 

gains the attention of one of thirty. Lord Clarence 
Paget is obliged to listen and reply, but no 
one else does. On the whole Sir Charles be- 
longs to the past. He was born in fighting times, 
and bred to fighting. He has harped on one string- 
till he has fallen a little behind his age. Now the 
times are altered ; the old days are gone, the old ideas 
exploded, the old watchwords lost ; and, like the bold 
Sir B e diver e, Sir Charles may exclaim — 

" And I, the last, go forth companionless, 
And the days darken round me, and the years, 
Amongst new men, strange faces, other minds." 



XII. 

SIR BULWER LYTTON. 

What wonders can be wrought by time, and patience, 
and energy ! Like faith, they can remove mountains. 
In what walk of life has not Sir Edward Bulwer 
Lytton succeeded? who writes better novels? who 
has published more popular poems ? who has penned 
smarter essays, or delivered more eloquent speeches ? 
Without being a genius, by steady industry he has 
outstripped genius itself. It is true his position has 
been very favourable to success. He has never been 
a poor author. He has always been able to dine his 
critics. From the first he has mixed in what is called 
good society, and such as he never toil for fame in 
vain. There are some people who maintain that 
virtue is always rewarded, even in this life. Be that 
as it may, a gentleman of talent, and learning, and 
wealth, can never fail as politician or writer. The 
late Mr Henry Drummond, who abused everybody 
and everything, whose speeches always pointed in one 



SIR BULWER LYTTON\ 155 

direction, while his votes went in another, was a suc- 
cess, as wit and statesman, because he was a partner 
in the banking-house in Charing-cross. For the same 
reason Sam Rogers got the public to buy so many 
editions of his " Pleasures of Memory." For the 
same reason, going back still further, were the verses 
of the Hon. William Robert Spencer — now rescued 
from oblivion merely by his being pilloried in the re- 
jected addresses — in demand. We may go back still 
further. Swift's song, by a person of quality, indicates 
how, even in the Augustan age, the position of the 
writer was a very important consideration. But the 
subject of this sketch has done more than merely 
achieve the success always achieved by his class. His 
pluck, and perseverance, and brilliant qualities, would 
have made him a marked man had he been born in a 
garret, in a kitchen bred. We like to sympathise 
with success, especially when that success is won 
by one of the " upper ten thousand." A good man 
struggling with adversity may be a sight dear to the 
gods, but certainly not to the British public. That 
august body is apt to vote such a one a bore, and in- 
finitely prefers the contemplation of a good man resid- 
ing on his own unencumbered estate, and well endow- 
ed with this world's goods. 

It is the night of a great debate. The men out of 
office are trying to drive out the men who are in ; and 
everything betokens that a crisis is at hand. The 
whippers-in in the lobby are counting up their men ; 



156 MODERN STATESMEN. 

the telegraph boys are hard at work ; the Irish patriots 
have had things made pleasant, and popular M.P.s 
are quietly being sold; a few fierce patriots from 
Finsbury or Marylebone are gazing wildly at the gas 
and the door-keepers, while treachery is being done 
before their very eyes. The strangers in the gallery 
are vastly excited, and wonder how it is the leading 
characters should look as weary as actors on any other 
stage. It is early yet, and the House is very full. 
The first speech of the adjourned debate has scarce 
commenced when a tall, ghostly figure glides on to 
the Opposition bench, and places himself by the side 
of Mr Disraeli — nearest to the strangers' gallery. 
His eye glistens like that of the ancient mariner, and 
his hand is almost as skinny. All the flesh on his face 
seems to have run into hair ; and his aquiline nose is 
as much a feature as was that of the Duke, or as is 
that of my Lord Brougham. He stoops forward, 
places his elbow on his side, makes an ear-trumpet of 
his hand, and turns his face to the speaker for the 
time being, as if unwilling to lose a single word. 
Perhaps he may take a note or two ; rejoice, if he 
does, for that is a sure sign that he will speak next ; 
and, if he does, you will have, indeed, a treat. As a 
dramatist, the man before you has won fitting fame ; 
as a novelist, the world is familiar with his name. 
The voice of woman, quivering with emotion, has 
sung his choicest songs. The hard man of the world, 
the scholar in his cloister, the idler in Belgravian 



SIR BTJLWER LYTTON. 157 

saloons, have alike to be grateful to him for many 
hours of real joy ; and therefore is it that not in vain 
does the author of " The Caxtons," and "My Novel," 
and " The Pilgrim of the Rhine," rise to catch the 
Speaker's eye. Sir Bulwer Lytton does not often 
address the House ; when he does, his speeches are 
carefully prepared, and have the questionable reputa- 
tion of reading well. He is artificial throughout. 
His voice, which is weak, is studiously modulated ; 
his action, which is exuberant, is the same ; his 
moustache, and dress, and deportment have an equally 
elaborate air. Though a wealthy baronet and a lead- 
ing statesman, there is something of the author of 
" Pelham " hangs about him ; yet, all that art and 
knowledge can do for him he has received. If reciting 
an essay were debating, Sir Bulwer Lytton would 
achieve no mean place in the annals of parliamentary 
eloquence ; but he lacks the true secret of oratorical 
success — the genius for speaking, which nothing can 
buy — which no art can give, no industry secure — for 
the absence of which nothing can compensate — and 
the presence of which makes low-born, half-educated 
men principalities and powers. You see at once that 
the orator is on stilts ; but he has a name, his composi- 
tion is perfect, and he is, besides, immensely rich ; so 
cheer after cheer greets him as he delivers, one after 
another, his well-prepared thrusts. Vivian Gray tells 
us — " In this country, to achieve distinction, a man 
must have a genius, or a million, or blood." Sir 



158 MODERN STATESMEN. 

Bulwer is favoured by the gods, and has all three, and 
now the tall and still handsome baronet would win 
yet another triumph — he would be a statesman as 
well as a novelist — he would act a part in history as 
well as imagine one — he would live in Downing- 
street as well as in Paternoster- row. 

Sir Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer Lytton 
was born at Hey don Hall, Norfolk, in 1805, and was 
educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he 
gained the Chancellor's prize medal for the best Eng- 
lish poem. He sat for St Ives in 1831, and for Lin- 
coln from 1832 to 1841, and was then supposed to be 
an advanced Liberal, and eager for the repeal of the 
taxes on knowledge, on which question he founded an 
annual motion, and which, on one occasion, it is sup- 
posed he would have carried, as there was a large 
majority in his favour, but Mr Spring Rice appealed 
to him, and the motion was consequently withdrawn. At 
that time, also, he was in favour of the ballot, but now 
a large landowner, and seeing its utter inemcacy in 
France and America, he can no longer defend that 
theory. Altogether, he has very much altered his 
opinions, in common, I believe, with the rest of the 
British public, since he first started in life as a public 
man, and edited that respectable but long-defunct pub- 
lication, the Monthly Chronicle. He now concurs with 
the general policy espoused by Lord Derby — would 
readjust the income-tax and mitigate on malt and tea. 
Yet the Whigs made Sir Bulwer a baronet. I am told 



SIR BULWER LYTTON. 159 

Sir Bulwer's maiden speech was by no means over- 
effective ; but Sir Bulwer is a man not easily daunted, 
and he tried again. He obtained a committee to in- 
quire into the laws affecting the drama, and introduced 
and carried a bill to grant stage copyrights to written 
dramas. One of his best speeches was that for the, 
immediate emancipation of the West Indian slaves. 
O'Connell described it as one of the most vigorous 
efforts of impassioned reasoning he had ever heard in 
that House, and the speech was printed at the request 
and expense of the delegates from the societies in 
favour of immediate emancipation. Some of his poli- 
tical pamphlets, especially one called the " Crisis," 
have been very effective. On Lord Melbourne's re- 
sumption of the reins of power, it led to the offer of a 
place as one of the Lords of the Admiralty, an offer 
which Sir Bulwer very wisely declined. Of the 
" Letters to John Bull " I can only add that they plead 
for protection, and that the cause was already lost ere 
the baronet ventured into the field. On this question, 
however, he was consistent, as, so early as 1839, we 
find him resisting the repeal of the Corn Laws ; and 
when he returned to public life, the old bonds of party 
had been in some degree broken up. He pronounced 
himself in favour of a fair trial to Lord Derby's Go- 
vernment, and, shortly after his return to Parliament, 
delivered his sentiments to this effect in a speech ap- 
plauded by Disraeli as one of the most masterly ever 
given to the House. He spoke again once in the ses- 



160 MODERN STATESMEN. 

sion of 1853, upon his own motion against the enact- 
ment of the income-tax on its former footing ; and 
when the Aberdeen Administration drifted into war, 
and broke down beneath the unaccustomed load, more 
than once was the voice of the baronet heard uttering 
what all England thought and felt. In 1858 the 
member for Hertfordshire — for in 1852 Sir Bul- 
wer achieved that honour — became Secretary for 
the Colonies, and retained that office till the Derby 
administration fell, owing to the laudable desire of 
Lords Palme.rston and Russell to present the people 
of England with a full and efficient measure of Par- 
liamentary Reform. Altogether, the literary baronet 
is a great catch for the county party ; with an intel- 
lect equal to that of Disraeli, and a name how much 
more English and racy of the soil ! 

As an orator, he carries us back to old times. The 
last time I heard Sir Bulwer Lytton reminded me of 
the last time I heard Macaulay. In more senses than 
one they resembled each other. They both laboured 
under physical disadvantages ; they were both pre- 
pared speakers rather than debaters ; and they both 
sustained similar relations to their party. It is the 
fashion of the baronet — as it was of the peer — to speak 
early in the evening ; and what a rush was there to 
hear them ! how the House filled ! how the gallery 
opposite the Speaker filled! how keen was the enjoy- 
ment of the audience, and how sincere and enthusiastic 
the applause! The occasion to which I more particu- 



SIR BULWER LYTTON. 161 

larly allude was the adjourned debate on the second 
reading of the Reform Bill. Sir Bulwer Lytton spoke 
for nearly two hours, and certainly never did the lion, 
baronet make a more effective speech. Unfortunately 
he is very deaf, and, as he cannot tell when he is audi- 
ble or not, at times he elevates his voice — which is 
very clear and shrill — and at times he drops it so much 
as to be utterly inaudible ; and then he has such vehe- 
ment and forcible gesticulation, as frequently to excite 
the apprehension quite as much as the admiration of the 
hearer. His spare, wiry, weird appearance ; his thin 
outstretched arms ; his figure, one moment thrown 
back to the imminent danger of the spine, and anon 
reaching as far as possible forward, in an opposite direc- 
tion, seems scarcely English, and one feels as if witness- 
ing the feats of some foreign professor of legerdemain, 
who has made the round of the principal Courts of 
Europe, and has condescended, for pecuniary reasons, 
to abide awhile in the more aristocratic regions of the 
metropolis. But this feeling soon vanishes as the ac- 
complished rhetorician proceeds to invest even the 
common-places of party with an original and classic 
air. One great merit Sir Bulwer Lytton has, and 
that is, he is never dull. As a rule, M.P.s are 
dreadfully dull, Dulness — if I may judge by what I 
hear and see every day, especially in the Church and. 
in the Senate-house — is much appreciated by the Eng- 
lish public. We seem quietly to assume that a dull 
man is never either a rogue or a fool. In vain we 
11 



162 MODERN STATESMEN. 

take the taxes off knowledge, and teach people to 
read and write : 

" Still her old empire to restore she tries, 
For, born a goddess, Dulness never dies." 

One word as to Sir Bulwer Lytton's Parliamentary- 
position. The House of Commons every day becomes 
a more plebeian assembly. One cannot be surprised 
at this, for its saving virtue is, that it is the People's 
House (in reality, it is not what it is in theory) ; and, 
of course, every day we are told that it is less and less 
an assembly of orators. This is a very old complaint ; 
Wilberforce made it in 1809, when Canning and 
Brougham were in the House. As soon as the Re- 
formed Parliament met, all the rejected M.P.s and 
Anti- Reformers said the same. The truth is,, the 
House meets for business, and the leaders and most 
successful men talk about business, and M.P.s, no 
matter how distinguished they may be for their talents, 
who forget this and seek to shine by mere eloquence, 
must assuredly fail. Now, Sir Bulwer Lytton 
belongs to the old school, and does the oratorical on 
the grand scale, while Disraeli and Lord Palmer- 
ston speak for power, and are indifferent as to dis- 
play. Sir Bulwer seems to consider himself merely 
" as a living apparition, sent to be a moment's orna- 
ment ;" and hence it is that he has never taken first 
rank in an assembly which is jealous as a mistress of a 
divided . homage. The grand field-nights are merely 



SIR Bl'LWER LYTTOX. 163 

oratorical exercises ; tlie real business of the country 
is carried on in a much less pretentious manner. I 
almost wonder how M.P.s can sit out such occasions. 
They know their mockery. Excuses may be made for 
verdant and enthusiastic strangers in the gallery. 
Speaking rarely affects voting; party contests never. 



11 



XIII. 



THE RT. HON. SIDNEY HERBERT. 



As regards ourselves, perhaps the most responsible 
post in the ministry is the Secretary of the War De- 
partment. No one supposes that England is in any 
danger of invasion — no one supposes for a moment 
that a successful invasion is possible ; but the moral 
influence of a nation greatly depends upon its display 
of physical power. If you travel in France, or converse 
with Germans, or, indeed, with almost any class of 
foreigners, they will tell you that England has seen 
her best days ; that she does not take the high posi- 
tion among the nations of the earth she once assumed ; 
that, in short, we are used up, and only fit to play 
second fiddle to France. If we ask for proof of this 
monstrous assertion we are referred to the Crimean 
war, but our unfriendly critics forget that if, at the 
first, our official system broke down — that if our brave 
men were badly officered — that if we lost them by 
thousands — that, if our stores, and plans, and generals 



THE RT. HON. SIDNEY HERBERT. 165 

proved old and useless — public opinion had been 
aroused — efforts, such as only England can make, were 
made, and that we were in a condition to carry on a 
successful struggle, just as France, exhausted and 
weary, was but too glad to have recourse to peace. 
Let Europe see that our army is in a thoroughly effect- 
ive state, and Old England will be held in as much 
honour, and her alliance as earnestly desired, and her 
displeasure as deeply dreaded, as in the days of Nelson, 
or Wellington, or the other mighty heroes of the past. 
But, in order that this may be the case, we need a 
man at the head of the war department in the House 
of Commons who is above that fear of giving offence 
in high quarters which bringeth a snare — a man who 
thoroughly understands the faults of the present con- 
dition of the army — who is desirous to remove them, 
and who is determined that the English army shall be 
as effective as it is costly. Is Mr Herbert the man for 
this ? That is a question which the future alone can 
decide. What we know of him is to his credit. In a 
small way he has done the State good service. He 
has been " faithful over a few things." For many a 
useful reform, for many an extra comfort, the English 
soldier has to thank him. When out of office he vigor- 
ously supported those who advocated a better educa- 
tion of officers, and especially of those for the staff. 
Besides, he has dared to attack the purchase system — 
that most monstrous of all abuses. A War Minister 
of determined will, backed by public opinion, might 



166 MODERN STATESMEN. 

make the English army the most perfect military ma- 
chine in the world : but to do this he must be prepared 
to encounter the pains and enmities of the Upper Ten 
Thousand. He must be prepared to make sacrifices 
of the severest character : his self-reliance would be 
put to a very terrible trial, and in Parliament he would 
be worried almost to death. Even at the Horse Guards 
— where, from the position of the present Commander- 
in-Chief, he might naturally look for sympathy and 
aid, he would receive nothing but discouragement. 
In the debate which took place very recently in the 
House of Lords, his Royal Highness the Commander- 
in-Chief did not conceal his bias in favour of the 
present system, and indeed he has often confessed his 
strong reluctance to undertake the responsibility of 
selecting deserving officers, and promoting them over 
the heads of the wealthy but less deserving. In 
Spenser's Fairy Queen we read of a philosopher who 
argues with a giant ; the giant has an iron mace and 
knocks him down. Will Mr Sidney Herbert submit 
thus to be knocked down ? The attempt undoubtedly 
will be made, if he seeks to do his duty to the army, 
his country, or his Queen. 

Mr Herbert is one of the governing classes. The 
right honourable gentleman, born in 1810, is son of 
the eleventh Earl of Pembroke by his second wife, the 
only daughter of Count Woronzow, and is half- 
brother and heir-presumptive to the present earl. I 
am particular in giving Mr Herbert's genealogy, be- 



THE RT. HON. SIDNEY HERBERT. 167 

cause it was a favourite cry of the beery politicians of 
London that Odessa was spared because Sidney Her- 
bert's wife was a Russian princess. Small politicians 
made considerable capital out of the charge, and one 
daily paper — the intelligent reader can guess which — 
laid considerable stress upon the fact. The real truth 
is, that in 1846 Sidney Herbert married a daughter 
of Major- General A'Court, a lady well known for a 
life of untiring activity and energy in the walks of 
philanthropy more especially fitted for female cooper- 
ation and aid. 

It is said a change of blood improves the breed. 
The nobles of Spain intermarry and become intellectu- 
ally and physically weak. The French occupation of 
Hamburg is said much to have aided in the production* 
of a better race of citizens in that pleasant and thriving 
town. Speaking of the celebrated Irish Brigade, Lord 
Cloncurry tells us in his Memoirs, " There could not 
be a better example of crossing blood than was afforded 
by these gentlemen. They were generally the offspring 
of Irish fathers and French mothers, and were the finest 
models of men I ever recollect to have seen." The 
fact that the true-born Englishman has in his veins the 
blood of almost every country under heaven, may ac- 
count for the beauty and energy of which we boast, and 
which even rival nations reluctantly confess. I be- 
lieve there is nothing like the infusion into an English 
family of a little genuine northern blood. Sidney Her- 
bert is emphatically a case in point. There is un- 



168 MODERN STATESMEN. 

doubtedly something very fine and vigorous about his 
personal appearance. He is the very model of the mo- 
dern English gentleman ; — not the port- wine drinking, 
anti-French, Church-and- King man of the last genera- 
tion, under whom the nation was going headlong to the 
devil, but of a man born in affluence, whom Chris- 
tianity has made decent, and whose intellectual and 
bodily powers have been strengthened and matured by 
the habits of a life. At the same time, he exhibits all 
the disadvantages of having been brought up in a class 
and accustomed to look at everything in a distorted 
light. Such men are like men coming out of a cave, 
and it is long before they discern things as they really 
are. Hence, as in the case of Lord Stanley, half their 
.time is devoted to unlearning the preposterous notions 
acquired at home, or at school, or college. The par- 
liamentary career of Mr Herbert illustrates this. He 
began life in 1832 as a Conservative. The first occasion 
of his taking part in a debate in Parliament was on the 
20th of June, 1834, upon a motion for the second read- 
ing of a bill for the admission of Dissenters to the 
Universities. Mr Estcourt, the predecessor of Mr 
Gladstone in the representation of the University of 
Oxford, having moved as an amendment that the bill 
be read a second time that day six months, he was 
seconded by Mr Sidney Herbert, who opposed the 
measure on the ground that, in these times of dissension 
of every species, the admission of Dissenters to the 
Universities would be nothing less than opening these 



THE RT. HON. SIDNEY HERBERT. 169 

institutions to conflicting opinions, and making them 
the arena of religious animosity ! ! ! Again, up to the 
year 1841, Mr Herbert's opinions on the principle 
which should guide us in our commercial intercourse 
with the nations were decidedly protectionist. He 
opposed the motion of the then Whig government, 
to substitute for the sliding scale an eight-shilling 
fixed duty on the imports of corn, as well as Lord John 
Russell's proposal for the reduction of the duties on 
foreign sugar ; but when Peel turned round, Sidney 
Herbert, who had been successively Secretary to the 
Admiralty and Secretary at War, with a seat in the 
Cabinet, turned round with him ; and in a debate in 
1846, on the motion of Sir Robert Peel for a committee 
of the whole House upon the customs and corn import- 
ation acts — having been taunted by the Earl of March 
with an abandonment of his oft-expressed convictions, 
the right honourable gentleman confessed that, after 
the most mature deliberation, he had been compelled to 
take the course he had. Of course Mr Herbert's 
constituency was protectionist to the backbone all the 
same ; and when a general election came in 1847, an 
attempt was made to displace him in the representation 
of the county. Mr Herbert's influence in Wiltshire 
is enormous ; and Wiltshire, in the person of its re- 
presentative, decided in favour of Free Trade. Then 
came the Crimean war, when one statesman after 
another became bankrupt. The Duke of Newcastle 
became the scapegoat, and was sent forth, like the 



170 



MODERN STATESMEN. 



goat in Mr Robert's picture, into the desert, bearing 
the sins of the Ministry. In the unpopularity of that 
period Sidney Herbert had his share ; nor was his un- 
popularity undeserved. It is clear that he relied upon 
the misstatements of the officials, and contended that 
our army was in a prosperous condition, when in fact it 
was the reverse ; that he, and those who acted with 
him, never thought we should have had a real war ; and 
that, when war actually broke out, they were not pre- 
pared to carry it on with vigour, or to punish Russia 
as she deserved. This is another disadvantage Sidney 
Herbert experienced on account of his birth and breed- 
ing — he had lived in an ideal world — he had never stood 
face to face with the English nation. Had he lived 
and toiled as the people live and toil, his sight would 
have been clearer and his blundering less. I am aware 
that the people is not a profoundly learned or acutely 
logical body ; but they had the idea, and in this they 
were right, that Turkey was wronged — that Russia 
was an aggressive power, and they believed that as 
Russia had been the mainstay of despotism on the 
continent, that a war that would have crippled Russia 
would have aided the cause of freedom and of man all 
over Europe. Under such an idea alone was war 
justifiable. Our statesmen entered on it with no such 
idea, and by large classes the war cry was reechoed 
for even still less worthy ends — as a means of plunder 
after inglorious years of inactivity, half-pay, and 
peace. The war came, and the people grew mad as 



THE RT. HON. SIDNEY HERBERT. 171 

the Times told them what Sidney Herbert and the 
Government denied. Mr Roebuck's motion was 
carried, and down went the Aberdeen Cabinet like a 
ship at sea. We remember well the night of the debate. 
Generally, when the tellers come up to announce the 
result, they are cheered by the winning party as only 
Englishmen can cheer. For a wonder, on that occa- 
sion not a cheer was heard ! There was silence, amaze- 
ment, wonder everywhere ; and then a short derisive 
laugh, as they saw the vaunted coalition melt into 
thin air. They did well to be silent and amazed. 
Thoughtful men were already asking — of this victory 
who was to reap the fruits ? Were the Derbyites again 
to be placed in power ? or was the Great Britain of 
the nineteenth century, the mother of colonies, com- 
pared with which those of imperial Rome were pigmies 
•'—the asylum of liberty denied elsewhere, to be the 
appanage of the House of Bedford ; or was there to be 
but a shuffle of the cards — Palmerston premier, in the 
place of Lord Aberdeen ; Lord Panmure in the room 
of the Duke of Newcastle ; Fred. Peel, vice Sidney 
Herbert ? were the old faces again to come back to us? 
was the old fearful system of administration again to 
be continued ? was the old hideous weight of the aris- 
tocracy again, like a nightmare, to press upon the 
land ? was there to be no hope of a better state of 
things? Well, there was then silence, for who was 
there to cheer ? Lord John Russell ignominiously 
escaped from the sinking ship. Sidney Herbert and 



172 MODERN STATESMEN. 

his colleagues at any rate bravely stuck to their posts. 
Sidney Herbert was driven from office, that Mr Frede- 
rick Peel might fill his vacant place. We doubt whether 
the nation gained anything by the change. 

A man who is born to enormous wealth, like Sidney 
Herbert, owes much to society. A landlord who 
knows nothing of his property but to draw his rents 
from it — who merely comes into the country to hunt, 
and then spends an idle and vicious career in the capi- 
tals of Europe, is the most dangerous possible cha- 
racter ; and in times of fierce political excitement 
would precipitate anarchy and revolution. But the 
landed class have grown philanthropic. Their aim is 
to build churches, to form schools, to caution their 
labourers against beer-shops, to send out distressed 
needlewomen to Australia, to turn ragged boys into 
decent and industrious shoeblacks, and to learn St 
Giles the value of a cheap bath and a clean shirt. Of 
this class of philanthropists Lord Shaftesbury may be 
placed at the head ; next, perhaps, is Sidney Herbert. 
He has done as much, perhaps, as could be done, in 
mitigating the hardships of the British poor, and while 
in office, it must be remembered that he did much for 
the improvement of the soldier's condition, and that it 
was he who broke through routine, despised the cla- 
mour of the religious press as to infecting the army 
with Puseyism, and suffered Florence Nightingale 
and her noble company to proceed on their mission of 
mercy and love. 



THE RT. HON. SIDNEY HERBERT. 173 

But I have not yet pointed him out to you. You 
will see him seated side by side with Palmerston and 
Russell and his colleagues, on the right hand of the 
Speaker. It is the time appointed for private business. 
Military men are numerous in the House, and as every 
man of them has his own peculiar views, which he is 
anxious to see put in practice, Mr Herbert has enough 
to do to answer the numerous interrogatories address- 
ed to him on all sides. Look at him on his legs. 
What a contrast to General Peel, or Mr Frederick 
Peel, or Sir Joshua Ramsden, and other amiable me- 
diocrities, his predecessors ! What strength seems to 
lie in his well-formed and manly figure ! How full 
is his face of power, and sharpness, and determination ! 
How clearly and pleasantly he speaks ! In debate, how 
ready and practical he is ! What a clear ringing voice 
he has ! He may not be a great orator, but he is cer- 
tainly a useful and able man. 

Yet one must not be too much prepossessed in favour 
of Mr Sidney Herbert. His appointment of General 
Grey was a scandal of the most atrocious order, and 
worthy of the worst days of military mismanagement. 
England needs a good army, and to that it is essential 
that promotion should go, not by favour, but by merit. 
Yet in the case of General Grey this principle was 
completely set aside. The press found fault, and Mi- 
Herbert was determined to stand by his order. He 
was not going to sacrifice a man because the press 
insisted on the promotion of some veteran warrior in 



174 MODERN STATESMEN. 

preference to the claims of a carpet knight ; of course 
the Upper Ten Thousand will consider that Mr Her- 
bert acted rightly, but plain people must have a very 
different opinion. Especially when they feel that Mi- 
Herbert is the responsible head of the army, not mere- 
ly from his parliamentary position, but as a matter of 
fact. 



XIV. 



SIR JOHN PAKINGTON, M.P. 



A tale is told of an Eastern potentate, who, amongst 
the other lions of London, visited the House of Com- 
mons. The distinguished foreigner was delighted with 
everything he saw ; the occupants of the Treasury 
benches, the Speaker, the Mace, the Serjeant-at-Arms, 
the clerks at the table, the reporters in the gallery, 
small and incommodious, and the ladies very properly 
in another gallery, smaller and more incommodious 
still ; all were so fortunate as to obtain his warm ap- 
proval. His attention was directed to gentlemen sit- 
ting opposite the Treasury benches. He asked who 
they were ; the reply was, that they were Her Ma- 
jesty's Opposition. The answer puzzled him greatly, 
and when he did understand it, when it was explained 
that those gentlemen sat there to oppose everything 
Her Majesty's government said and did — to find fault 
with it, whether it stood still or moved on, he scarce 
knew whether most to admire the audacity that could 



176 MODERN STATESMEN. 

suggest, or the lenity that could pardon, such a course. 
" Her Majesty's Opposition, indeed ! " exclaimed the 
astonished spectator. " By Allah ! in my country we 
should have off their heads in a week." Even in 
civilised Europe an opposition exists only by perilling 
its liberty. It is only in England it is safe. In times 
of excitement, the opposition is a safety valve — in 
times of weakness, a source of confusion — in times like 
the present, principally a means of doubling the par- 
liamentary session and reports. A clear, definite 
policy may receive a decided opposition, as it will 
insure a decided support. Free Trade, for instance, 
was a thing to which men might say Yes or No, as 
they could to Catholic Emancipation, the Reform 
Bill, or the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 
or as they will say to measures which will be discussed 
when the people of this country awake from their 
sleep of political indifference and unbelief. But it is 
difficult to oppose a government without convictions ; 
especially if the opposition comes from men in a similar 
category. In the main, both parties are agreed. Both 
have accepted Free Trade. Either would regale a 
hustings' mob with the cant phrases of " a glorious 
war," or ' ' a safe and honourable peace." The fiery 
old thick-headed squires are gone, and the jolly 
old thick-headed opposition is gone with them. Sib- 
thorpe was the ultimus Romanorum. One does not see 
why Sir John Pakington sits on one side of the House 
and Sir Charles Wood on the other. One can under- 



SIR JOHN PAKINGTON, M.P. 177 

stand Sir Harry Inglis, or Sir Charles Wetherell, or 
a late Duke of Newcastle. They would not move the 
ancient landmarks. They honestly believed that it 
was essential to the welfare of this country that Old 
Sarum and Gatton should be represented in Parlia- 
ment, and that Manchester and Birmingham should 
not; they thought, that the way to get the Irish 
Roman Catholics to love them, was by insulting and 
persecuting the professors of that ancient faith — that, 
to keep men honest, they were to swear to what they 
did not believe, and that the country would go to the 
bad if the starving labourer was permitted to eat his 
untaxed bread. At the time of the Reform Bill agi- 
tation Sir Harry Inglis said, that if that bill were 
carried, then in ten years' time there would be no 
State Church, no House of Lords — nay, more — that 
even Royalty would be swept away. Now, all this 
seems very absurd to us, but it was honestly believed 
then by some of the Opposition, who went so far as to 
take their money out of the English funds and invest 
them in American stock. The Opposition, then, if not 
very enlightened, was at any rate clear. Now that it 
has become wiser, it is less of an opposition. As an 
instance, let us glance at Sir John Pakington's politi- 
cal career. Sir John Somerset Pakington, born in 
1799, at Powick Court, Worcestershire, very much 
astonished the world by accepting, in 1852, the office 
of Secretary of State for the Colonies. Men had only 
conceived of him as a respectable member of the 

12 



178 MODERN STATESMEN. 

country party and chairman of quarter sessions. No- 
minally a Conservative, necessity was laid upon him, 
and he was compelled to advance with the times. 
The party with which 'he acted has always opposed 
Free Trade, the Maynooth Grant, and the admission 
of Jews to Parliament ; but in office — first as Colonial 
Secretary, and then as First Lord of the Admiralty 
— Sir John has accepted Free Trade, walked out of 
the House without voting on a Maynooth debate, and 
was an active party in admitting Baron Rothschild 
and Alderman Salomons to a seat in the House of 
Commons. We thus learn that Sir John, if a Conser- 
vative, is not an obstinate one; not of that type of 
Conservatism which the ever-to-be-lamented Arnold 
deprecated as the most revolutionary element in exist- 
ence. From his attention to the subject of education 
— from his presence at the Social Science meetings — 
from his readiness to aid the philanthropic movements 
of the day — it is clear Sir John is a liberal, what- 
ever be the name of the party of whom he is one of 
the chiefs. Still more as a practical administrator are 
we under national obligations to Sir John Pakington. 
At the beginning of 1859, or at the latter end of 1858, 
the country became alarmed at the state of the national 
defences. Sir John,' who was then in office, turned 
his attention to the subject. Our navy was admitted 
to be woefully deficient; we were badly off both as 
regards ships and men. Sir John made an attempt to 
build the one and procure the other. If Sir John 



SIR JOHN PAKING.TON, M.P. 179 

Pakington fell into the usual error of exerting his in- 
fluence as First Lord of the Admiralty in political 
matters ; if he quarrelled with Captain Carnegie, be- 
cause the latter would not fight for the Conservatives 
at Dover, he did but as other First Lords of the Ad- 
miralty have done before. No doubt there is monstrous 
abuse in the Admiralty. By means of its influence 
and expenditure the dockyards are little better than 
government boroughs. No doubt that in these places 
millions and millions of the people's money are wasted ; 
Lord Clarence Paget has established this fact. A 
great statesman — a man of the first order — would have 
swept out this Augean stable. Sir John Pakington 
has failed to do so, and hence takes his place amongst 
statesmen of the second rank. 

We hear much of the country party ; Tennyson has 
painted the class. He describes a country squire as — 

" A great broad-shouldered genial Englishman ; 
A lord of fat prize oxen and of sheep ; 
A raiser of huge melons and of pine ; 
A patron of some thirty charities ; 
A pamphleteer on guano and on grain ; 
A quarter sessions' chairman — abler none ; 
Fair-haired, and redder than a windy morn." 

" Jolly companions are they every one," but they 
are not orators ; and while they will vote, and spend 
money, and fight at elections for their party, they have 
no idea of being penned up all night in the House of 
Commons, breathing bad air and listening to bad 
speeches. Writing in 1828, of a government formed 

12 * 



180 MODERN STATESMEN. 

on the basis of resistance to Roman Catholic claims, 
the late Sir Robert Peel wrote — "What must have 
been the inevitable fate of a government composed of 
Goulburn, Sir John Pechell, Wetherell, and myself ? 
Supported by very warm friends no doubt ; but those 
warm friends being prosperous country gentlemen, 
fox-hunters, &c. — most excellent men — who will 
attend one night, but who will not leave their favourite 
pursuits to sit up till two or three o'clock, fighting 
questions of detail — on which, however, a government 
must have a majority — we could not have stood credit- 
ably a fortnight." The description is still true, and 
hence it is that Sir John Pakington is made so much 
of. A real country gentleman so patriotic is a rarity; 
a country gentleman able to speak English as fluently 
and correctly as any lawyer in the House is a still 
greater rarity. 

In the middle of the front Opposition bench you will 
see a gentleman seated, of the middle size, with a pale 
face, and rather a hooked nose. In his dress and 
general bearing, you gather indications of correctness 
and finish, rather than of greatness or genius. On one 
side of him is Mr Disraeli ; on the other, it may be, is 
Sir Bulwer Lytton. What a contrast to each does Sir 
John Pakington present! Still, compared with the 
men with whom he is often matched, he rises vastly in 
your estimation. He is not so ludicrous as Sir Charles 
Wood, nor so distressingly fluent as Sir George Grey, 
nor is he so dreadfully dreary as Sir Cornewall Lewis 3 



SIR JOHN PAKINGTON, M.P. 181 

nor so hard and austere as Mr Charles Gilpin, nor 
does he drawl so excruciatingly as Lord John Russell, 
nor exhibit so flippant an air as the ever-youthful 
Palmerston. Sir John is a respectable speaker, and all 
respectable speakers are alike. He does not use the 
thunderbolts of Jove. He does not "shake the arsenal 
and fulmine over Greece." He does not even attempt 
— like Burke — to clothe Conservatism in a philosophic 
form — much less has he the wit and classic grace of 
Canning ; but then he has ever a good word for the 
clergy — wears always unexceptionable linen, always 
sports a good hat, has his thin gray hair well brushed, 
and delights in faultless boots. I should think he 
always pays his trades' people, attends punctually at the 
parish church, and, I should imagine, is a decorous 
husband, a pattern father of a family, and is regular in 
having the servants in to family prayers. 

There will be no collection of his speeches after hi s 
decease. The student will not resort to them as models, 
either on account of their powerful logic or brilliant 
declamation. They will go the way of most speeches, 
and sleep in Hansard for ever ; but Sir John is a use- 
ful man nevertheless. There are many lawyers who 
would make better speeches ; but then they are not 
country gentlemen ; and even if, as they do occasion- 
ally — like Mr Napier — shed tears, the common sense 
of the House rejects the idea of sincerity where lawyers 
are concerned ; but Sir John Pakington is a country 
gentleman with a large estate. The family is an old 



182 MODERN STATESMEN. 

one, and a decent one, and his party thankfully use 
his services. He does not convince them ; they do 
not want to be convinced — they are convinced already. 
He does not convince the Liberals ; their minds are 
made up to vote against Sir John before he opens his 
mouth : but he gives his party a ^decent excuse for 
voting. It would scarce do to march into the lobby 
without a discussion ; to give silent votes would be a 
confession of intellectual weakness for which the 
country party are not yet prepared; but Sir John 
can speak on any question for any length of time, and 
when, towards the end of a debate, he rises and repeats 
the objections which have entered his head, his friends 
feel that they have appeared to have discussed the 
measure long enough, and that it is time the division 
takes place ; and the strangers in the gallery feel that 
there are two sides to every question, and that they 
are not the worse for hearing them. 



XV. 



THE LATE HENRY DRUMMOND.* 

" To waive all considerations of personal friendship 
and esteem," wrote Edward Irving, in a preface to a 
volume of occasional discourses, " no one whom the 
religious stir and business of the last thirty years hath 
brought conspicuously before the Church, hath so 
strenuously served her best interests, through good and 
bad report, or doth so well deserve her thanks, as 
doth the man who brought forward, from their ob- 
scurity and persecutions, both Burckhardt and Wolff, 
and upheld their way against the sharp tongues of 
prudential and worldly-wise Christians ; who laid the 
foundations of the Continental Society, and hath built 
it up in the frown and opposition of the religious 
world ; who detected and dragged to light the false 
reports concerning the state of religion on the Conti- 
nent, with which the Bible Society in its palmy times 
had closed the charitable ear of the Church ; who has 

* The late Henry Drammo-nd was in every way a representative man, 
hence I have deemed it right to retain a sketch of him here. 



184 MODERN STATESMEN. 

stood forth as the friend and patron of every society 
which hath any show of favour for the Jews ; and, 
finally, who hath taken us, poor, despised interpreters 
of prophecy, under your wing, and made the walls 
of your house like unto the ancient schools of the 
prophets." 

The reader will scarce guess for whom this dedica- 
tion was composed. Perhaps he will think the subject 
of it was some wealthy clergyman or zealous bishop 
for a wonder trespassing beyond conventional limits, 
and showing himself a man earnest in matters of re- 
ligion. It will save some trouble if I declare at once 
the eulogy was addressed to no other than the gentle- 
man whose name heads this sketch — Henry Drum- 
mond, M.P., — a man whose plain mission seemed to be 
to teach that all is humbug under the sun. The 
Egyptians at their feasts placed a skeleton to remind 
them of their mortality. We are told the Sultan 
Saladin had the same message proclaimed to him day 
by day, lest, in the flattery of courtiers, and in a 
career of military successes, he should forget so terri- 
ble a truth. Drummond performed a similar duty in 
Parliament. In his eye we were all morally dead ; all 
virtue was gone clean out of us. Under the mask of 
patriotism he saw the grovelling soul of the placeman ; 
in the love of liberty, the desire of license ; in the 
people, an untaught mass, the prey of charlatans and 
quacks. Drummond reminded you of the 

" Gray and tooth-gapped man as lean as death," 



THE LATE HENRY DRUMMOND. 185 

whom Tennyson describes in his " Vision of Sin," and 
like him, he poured out a strain so sad and atheistic 
you would fain hope it false. Yet Drummond was an 
angel of the Irvingite Church, not as the result of a 
sudden whim, but as the proper climax to a long pro- 
fessional religious career. 

But I beg the reader's pardon for keeping him so 
long out of the House of Commons. Let us suppose 
it is a debate on any serious subject. The abolition 
of death punishments, for instance — a question em- 
bracing the whole range of subjects connected, not 
merely with the lives of wretched criminals, but with 
all the defences by which society would guard itself 
against crime. We will take the last debate on this 
subject as an illustration. Mr Ewart has of course 
defended his motion with his usual ability. Mr Had- 
field, a Manchester attorney, but representative of 
Sheffield, with a querulous, unpleasant voice, like that 
of a man who deserves to be in a minority if he is not 
in one, has seconded Mr Ewart, and immediately there 
rises from the gangway — the first bench on the floor 
on the left — a tall, clerical-looking gentleman, who at 
once makes the House laugh. Listen to him : — " The 
proposition was for a Select Committee to inquire into 
the operation of the law imposing the punishment of 
death. Now he should have thought the operation of 
that law was simple enough" (hear, and a laugh). 
Again the hon. gentleman extracts another laugh on a 
subject at the first glance certainly not very facetious. 



186 MODERN STATESMEN. 

The speaker continues : — " But the hon. gentleman call- 
ed upon them to abolish the punishment of death on the 
ground of its uncertainty. Now, what punishment 
could be more certain than that of death he could not 
conceive" — (hear, and alaugh) — and thus at any rate 
the amusement of the evening is heightened. Now on 
almost all subjects this eccentric M.P. thus spoke, 
invariably as much as possible in opposition to every 
one else. 

In the memoirs of the Brothers Haldane, we read, in 
the early part of the present century, of the arrival at 
Geneva of a gentleman whose " pleasing manners and 
aristocratic bearing, finely-chiselled features and in- 
tellectual forehead, bespoke his breeding and intelli- 
gence ; whilst in his acute and penetrating glance, wit, 
sarcasm, and the love of drollery, seemed to contend 
with earnestness, benevolence, and an ever-restless 
Athenian craving after novelty." To this young man, 
just entering into life, it seemed that all the world could 
offer was within his grasp. As the grandson of the 
first Lord Melville, the high offices of State were fairly 
within his reach. With wit and boundless wealth, 
what a life of pleasure, such as Alcibiades might have 
envied, was within his reach ! yet, while other men 
were climbing up the steep hill of fame, or dimming 
their lustre in the search after gold — or following the 
phantom pleasure far over hill and dale, till weary 
and way-worn she left them in utter darkness and de- 
spair — Henry Drummond was drawing around him a 



THE LATE HENRY DRUMMOND. 187 

select circle to study the dark sayings of the prophets, 
and to gather from them the weapons with which to 
turn to folly the wisdom of these latter days. Three 
curious volumes in octavo, entitled "Dialogues on 
Prophecy/' written by the host himself, and much 
subsequent confusion in the Christian Church, evinced 
that these bewildering conferences were not altogether 
without influence in their day. But one can't go on 
studying the prophets for ever. Englishmen especially 
cannot get rid of their inborn propensity to break- 
away from cloudland into practical life. Not merely do 
such as he of " Locksley Hall," with strong hearts torn 
and bleeding with the bitter agony of a manly love 
wantonly trifled with, or basely betrayed, exclaim — 

" I must nerve myself to action, lest I wither in despair ; " 
but all men, whatever be their inward sorrows, recog- 
nise the truth, not merely as a universal law of hu- 
manity, but as a blessed means of escape from 
entanglements of the heart, or difficulties of the head. 
Another reason may be urged — (the mighty master 
dead — the eloquent tongue, that, like the voice of a 
trumpet, terrified our Modern Babylon with the cer- 
tain coming of a millennial day, silent in the grave — 
the brain become dust that had to contend, not merely 
with the wit and wisdom of the world, which in its 
higher light it would see to be folly, but with the 
keen and cruel enmities of the Church) — silence in the 
halls of the prophets, and they 

" Scattered on the Alpine mountains cold," 



188 MODERN STATESMEN. 

what was there to forbid Drummond laying down his 
spiritual pursuits and betaking himself to others more 
congenial with human weakness and the claims of 
actual life. Thackeray sings : — 

" Ho ! pretty page with the dimpled chin 
That never has known the barber's shear, 

All your wish is woman to win, 

This is the way that boys begin, — 
Wait till you come to forty year." 

By the light of years one reads things differently to 
what one does in one's earlier days ; or if that be not 
the case possession cloys the appetite, and we find in 
change relief. Just as the elegant roue subsides into fat 
and matrimony, or the spendthrift becomes penurious, 
so Henry Drummond left the fathers for the senators, 
and forsook the school of the prophets that he might 
become one of the mob that fills St Stephen's with 
voices almost as obscure and unmeaning as those of 
prophecy itself. West Surrey contained the country- 
house of Henry Drummond ; what more natural than 
that it should return him as its representative ? West 
Surrey belongs to a few lords, and was not Drummond 
lordly by connection with wife and mother ? In West 
Surrey at any rate such logic is not unpalatable, and 
accordingly in 1847 Henry Drummond, a country 
gentleman of a sanctimonious turn — a theologian and a 
banker — a wit, yet a member of the haut ton — became 
its M.P. The man who combined all these characteris- 
tics — who could tell a scandal with a relish one moment, 



THE LATE HENRY DRUMMOND. 189 

and the next plunge many a fathom deep into the millen- 
nial controversy; who could talk in the true bucolic vein 
to the Tyrrells and Newdegates, and at the same time 
could say a good thing, worthy to be told at the clubs 
with the last epigram of Moore or the newest sarcasm 
of Rogers ; who could uphold the sacraments and yet 
abhor the Pope ; who could abuse the Church and yet 
spurn Dissent — was not an ordinary man. 

Austere and crotchety, elderly and cynical, Henry 
Drummond was an extraordinary man merely to look 
at. He was tall and thin, with an oval head, a calm, 
passionless face, and short, scant grey air. There was 
an air of the recluse about him. One would expect to 
find him at Oxford or Cambridge rather than in the 
House of Commons. Yet not only did you find him there, 
but he was a favourite with the House. When he spoke 
there was always a rush from the smoking-room and 
the lobbies. In the first place, he was what all Eng- 
lishmen like — rich ; in the second place, he had the 
good sense never to bore you, and never to be long ; 
in the third place, he was often witty, and invariably 
crotchety and odd. There are several men who at- 
tempt wit in the House. Lord Palmerston does, but 
his is generally sheer flippancy, and would be insuffer- 
able in a man who was not on the pedestal, but had a 
position to make. Sibthorp did, but his was of an in- 
ferior character, yet an enlightened English consti- 
tuency could return him, and will return his family 
for ever — at any rate, so long as they keep the estate. 



190 MODERN STATESMEN. 

One of the Lennoxes — the stout one, not the thin 
one that hands sherry cobblers to Mr Disraeli when he 
is doing the orator on an extensive scale — attempts to 
be jocose, but his is the tragic mirth of a gay man 
about town, and has the same effect on you as that of 
the celebrated peer of whom Tom Moore sang that 
when 

"The House looks unusually grave, 
You may always be sure that Lord Lauderdale 's joking." 

Then there is the wit of the cynic of the Dean Swift 
school, but slightly altered and improved, with all 
the improper passages omitted, with a dash of extra 
bitterness gathered from the fairest regions of theolo- 
gical controversy — scholarly and gentlemanly. That 
was the wit of Drummond, uttered in the mildest man- 
ner, and with the thinnest possible of voices, almost 
inaudible in the gallery, so that the House was kept in 
a state of the utmost soul-harrowing quiet and suspense, 
till he got to the end of a sentence, when it occurs to 
every one that Mr Drummond had been uncommonly 
funny, and the House relieved itself by a hearty laugh 
— a laugh generally heralded by a few preliminary 
explosions from the more impulsive members, as the 
orchestra tunes up previous to a grand overture, or as a 
few random shots may be heard ere rank and file on the 
battle-field may begin their murderous fire ; and when 
you read the Times next morning you are not surprised 
to find that "laughter" is reported after most of Mr 



THE LATE HENRY DRUMMOND. 191 

Drummond's remarks. I cannot find that the debate 
gained much by Mr Drummond's speeches. I do not 
imagine he intended it should. His object appeared 
to be simply to amuse and mystify the House. He 
seemed to assume that the House had made up its mind 
how it should vote long before the discussion com- 
menced, and therefore in a quiet, unostentatious 
way Mr Drummond merely uttered a few sentences 
and attained his object. I need scarcely observe 
then that he was an original ; no other definition of 
him can be given. He was neither Whig, Tory, nor 
Radical. I believe the author of " Who is Who" would 
be puzzled to describe to what class the member for 
West Surrey belonged. In the early part of Disraeli's 
career, a pamphlet was published with the title 
"What is He? " I could imagine a pamphlet having 
such a title, with reference to Mr Drummond, would 
have a very fair sale among his constituents. In 1847 
Mr Drummond walked over the course unopposed, yet 
I much question whether his constituents could have 
told what he was. Dodd tells me Mr Drummond was 
a Conservative ; that he was a member of the Royal Aca- 
demy of Fine Arts in Florence ; that he founded the 
Professorship of Political Economy at Oxford — feel- 
ing, I suppose, his own deficiency in this respect ; I 
learn also that he was a magistrate ; and as he always 
sneered at the present age, I am not surprised to find 
that he was the president of one of the literary institu- 
tions (the Western) so peculiar to the present age. He 



192 MODERN STATESMEN. 

believed people cannot live without good beer, yet 
he only knew one house in Surrey where they 
can get it good. He said that the food of the 
people should be as free from taxation as the air 
they breathe, yet he derided the free traders. He 
was opposed to all measures for taxing one sect 
for the support of the clergy of another, yet he 
always wrote against the abolition of church rates. 
He believed in God's goodness, and yet rolled as a 
sweet morsel under his tongue — and would propound 
it unhesitatingly in the House of Commons, where, of 
all places, theological dogmas should have no leave 
to enter — the utter depravity of infants at their 
birth. He borrowed from Rome the idea of a 
Catholic and Universal Church, and then abused 
the Pope. All men are rogues, and therefore it 
is folly to expose honesty in politics or in the ad- 
ministration of state affairs. He thought so meanly of 
his constituents that he told them they do every day 
what the Czar did when he originated the late war. 
He was an author, yet he abominated the press. But 
time fails me, and I give up the task of attempting to 
chronicle the opinions of the eccentric member for 
West Surrey. All his speeches are strange — some are 
clever and some are new. Once or twice the Times 
was guilty of the folly of attempting to write him 
down ; but in this country you cannot write down a 
statesman with an aristocratic iconnection and a good 
estate. Mr Drummond was more than the Times im- 



THE LATE HENRY DRUMMOND. 193 

agined, and hence its ridicule was thrown away. Mr 
Drummond was not a statesman in the common accept- 
ation of that term. You could never fancy him, with a 
penitent air, tying up red tape, and doing the work of the 
Circumlocution-office. Still less was he a party man ; 
for if he sat on one side of the House, he generally voted 
on the other, and his speech was no index to his vote. 
Nor was he a worshipper of public opinion, nor did he 
stand forth as its representative in the House. He was 
merely a country gentleman, cultivated into a paradox 
— at all times consistent in his aim at originality in po- 
litics and theology — with atone of extravagance caught 
in the prophetic conferences of his earlier years ; a 
man with a keen perception of the vanity of practical 
politics, and yet not strong enough to attain unto 
something purer and better. 



13 



XVI. 



WILLIAM S. LINDSAY. 



A good man of business need not necessarily be a bad 
politician. Algernon Sidney, speaking of trie Floren- 
tine republic, said " it was for a short time the most 
perfect republic that ever existed. In the morning 
they used to attend to their counting-houses, in the 
humble garb and manner of citizens. In the evening 
they used to attend in their places as legislators, with 
their Gonfaloniere, who was elected every three 
months, as their head ; and at night, when necessary, 
eighty thousand men, at the sight of the war-fires on 
the hills, assembled in the vale of Arno to march against 
the foe." In England trade and commerce have been 
looked upon almost as ignoble ; only a landed pro- 
prietor could be a true gentleman, and contained the 
raw material out of which might be formed the ac- 
complished orator or the heaven-born statesman. 
This idea has been latterly somewhat rudely shattered 
by the severe logic of facts, but it is a fallacy which 



WILLIAM S. LINDSAY. 195 

exists still in a mild form, especially in agricultural 
districts. Hence is it that even in our time the regular 
red tapists are very much annoyed at a gigantic inno- 
vation introduced since Lord Palmerston has been in 
office. They are angry that a man of business should 
have been sent to Paris to negotiate a commercial 
treaty, and they were still more angry when an exten- 
sive ship-owner was reported to have gone to America 
to try and get better terms from the American govern- 
ment for our shipping than at present we are able to 
do. This complaint might be well founded if our dis- 
tinguished and noble diplomatists were well acquaint- 
ed with commercial affairs. As notoriously they are 
not, there can be no harm on special occasions in call- 
ing in the aid of men well acquainted with particular 
subjects. Surely Mr Cobden should know something 
about the manufactures of Lancashire and Yorkshire, 
and Mr Lindsay ought to know something about ships. 
Our great statesmen may cram for a specific object, 
but knowledge so acquired is of very doubtful value. 
The success of the late much-lamented Mr Wilson 
was chiefly owing to the fact that he was practically, 
not theoretically, a man of business. For a similar 
reason Lord Cowley has been glad to call in the aid 
of Mr Cobden, and Mr Lindsay has set sail for the 
United States. 

Every now and then the name of Mr Lindsay is put 
very prominently before the public. There was a time 
when the Administrative Reform Association was very 
13 * 



196 MODERN STATESMEN. 

popular, and was not Mr Lindsay one of its greatest 
men ? There was a time when emigration was in vogue, 
and did not Mr Lindsay's ships form the bridge by 
which the ocean was passed, and El Dorado, as some 
idly dreamt, won ? And now the ruined British ship- 
owners — the men who have amassed fabulous wealth 
by the trade they denounce as irretrievably ruined — 
are moving heaven and earth for a return, in some form 
or other, of Protection, and can find no language bad 
enough or harsh enough for Mr Lindsay, because he 
will not join them in what he deems their mistaken 
course. It was almost amusing, at the City meeting 
held about twelve months ago, after Mr Lindsay had 
tried to get a word in on behalf of Free Trade, to hear 
Duncan Dunbar recall the word " friend " he had 
applied to Mr Lindsay (" a man who could utter such 
sentiments as Mr Lindsay had, he," Mr Dunbar, 
" could never, never call his friend "). One was re- 
minded of the famous scene in the House of Com- 
mons, when the aged Burke renounced for ever the 
friendship of his pupil and admirer, Fox. What a 
pity we should have to exclaim, in language but too 
familiar to the schoolboy — 

" Tantaene animis coelestibus irae." 

In the year 1816, in a humble station of life, Mr 
Lindsay was born at Ayr' — that town dear to all ad- 
mirers of Burns for its 

" Honest men and bormie lasses." 



WILLIAM S. LINDSAY. 197 

At six, the future ship-owner was left an orphan ; and, 
when only fifteen years of age, he commenced his 
career, leaving home with only three shillings and 
sixpence in his pocket, to push his fortunes as a sea 
boy. He worked his passage to Liverpool by trim- 
ming coals in the coal-hole of a steamer. Arrived in 
that great commercial emporium, he found himself 
friendless and destitute, and seven long days passed 
before he was able to find employment. Let those 
who tell us that the poor man has no chance in this 
country — that, be he industrious, moral, and intelli- 
gent, he can never rise — that capital is a hard task- 
master, and holds its victims in worse than American 
slavery — learn, then, that during this time young 
Lindsay experienced the most abject poverty — that he 
was reduced to the necessity of sleeping in the sheds 
and streets of Liverpool, after eating nothing but what 
he begged for ! At length he was fortunate enough to 
be engaged as cabin-boy on board a West Indian man- 
of-war. Frightful were his hardships even then ; 
but his heart never failed him, and in three years he 
rose to be second mate. The following year he was 
first mate, and in his nineteenth year became captain 
of the " Olive Branch." By this time he had enough 
of the sea. He had suffered one shipwreck ; had had 
both legs and one arm broken ; had been cut down by 
a sabre stroke in a hostile encounter in the Persian 
Gulf. So we are not surprised to find Mr Lindsay in 
1841 agent for the Castle Eden Coal Company. In 



198 MODERN STATESxMEN. 

1845 he removed to London, and laid the foundation 
of that extensive business which makes him a com- 
petent authority on all matters connected with his 
craft, and which entitles him to rank with the mer~ 
chant princes of the metropolis. 

Mr Lindsay, in the midst of his upward struggle 
from poverty to wealth, sedulously sought his own 
mental improvement. Instead of wasting his spare 
evening hours in dissipation and idleness, or even 
harmless recreation, he diligently sought to make up 
for the defects of his early education, and to acquire 
that knowledge which, in his case, emphatically be- 
came power. The result was, he soon acquired popu- 
larity as a writer, especially by his important work on 
" Our Navigation and Mercantile Laws." His next 
step was to get into Parliament. He contested New- 
port, Monmouthshire, in April, and Dartmouth in 
July, 1852. In March, 1854, after a severe struggle, 
by a majority of seventeen, he was returned for Tyne- 
mouth. In 1857 he was re-elected without opposition, 
and of Tynemouth he continues to be representative 
to this day. In every sense of the word he is a free 
trader. At the City meeting, already referred to, he 
claimed the right to address the meeting in opposition 
to the resolution, as he could not allow it to go forth 
that the distress of the shipping interest was attribut- 
able to the existing system of maritime commerce, or 
the repeal of the navigation laws. The resolution and 
the memorial presented to the Crown last year were 



WILLIAM S. LINDSAY. 199 

fallacious. He was favourable to reciprocity ; but not 
enforced reciprocity, because that was protection in 
its worst form. It would revive the war of classes and 
the system of commerce which prevailed in the time of 
Cromwell. Mr Lindsay's opponents may be right, 
but the extent of our shipping under free trade points 
to an opposite conclusion. 

In size, Mr Lindsay resembles Mr Cobden, nor is 
he unlike him in shape ; but he has a redder face, 
darker hair, and his voice is of that rich Doric of which 
a little is quite enough. Pure Scotch is very pleasant 
to read in the Nodes Ambrosiance, but one soon tires 
of it in the House of Commons. It is very probable 
Mr Lindsay would have remained an obscure man in 
that illustrious assembly, had not the Crimean war 
broken out, and our great heads of departments com- 
pletely broken down. Mr Lindsay was fortunate in 
finding that the weakest part of the whole affair was 
precisely that which he knew most about. Accord- 
ingly he exposed Government blunders in many ways, 
and became all at once a notoriety. He was known 
to speak as one having authority. Had he not 
originally been a cabin-boy, and now had he not at his 
command a fleet almost as extensive as that belonging 
to the Lords of the Admiralty ! Heads of depart- 
ments trembled, for they knew Mr Lindsay understood 
his own business; whereas, they could make neither 
head nor tail of theirs. The Times admitted Mr 
Lindsay to be an authority, and the House of Com- 



200 MODERN STATESMEN. 

mons, always ready to hear a man when he has some- 
thing to say, listened when he spoke ; strangers stared 
over the gallery, to the great disgust of the door- 
keepers, who in vain bawled out, " Keep your seats , 
gentlemen ! " when Mr Lindsay was on his legs. In 
the lobby he was pointed at as the man who was to save 
the State ; and when Old Drury opened its wide doors 
for the administrative Reformers, and Mr Lindsay was 
the attraction of the night, the multitudes who flocked 
in showed how easily and completely Mr Lindsay had 
achieved an extensive fame. Yet Mr Lindsay is no 
orator — no statesman — no scholar, with wise saws and 
modern instances. Burke would have turned from him 
with disgust, and Sheridan would have swallowed a 
bottle of wine in the attempt to elaborate, with regard 
to him, what he would have endeavoured to pass in so- 
ciety as some extempore jokes. A temporary emergency 
gave to Mr Lindsay a temporary importance ; he said 
the right thing at the right time ; he had to perform 
the very easy task of picking holes in a very rotten coat, 
and he performed it easily. More than this he never 
attempted — more than this, if he be a wise man, he 
will not attempt. As it is, he has been fortunate in 
life, more than most men, and need not be ungrateful 
or rail at the gods if he have not the privilege of dying 
a Cabinet Minister. 

Nor is this to be regretted. A man is happier with- 
out the responsibilities of office. Still I like to point 
out to the illustrious stranger as imperial senators men 



WILLIAM S. LINDSAY. 201 

who talk provincial English ; I like to say, Sir, thirty 
years back that man was a ragged boy ; he was lucky ; 
he got on the right track; he made a fortune, and the 
people of this country, out of their deference to wealth 
combined with talent, chose him as a representative. 
Let me here demonstrate the evanescent nature of re- 
putations. Except when ship-owners are clamorous, 
Mr Lindsay is forgotten — 

" Oh, no, we never mention Mm, 
His name is never heard." 

His life devoted to commerce, his intellect sharpen- 
ed, yet have not made him a statesman. The shipping 
question over, he sinks into the usual track of ordinary 
M.P.s; in an assembly of educated gentlemen, of 
logical reasoners, of trained rhetoricians, he is on 
general subjects easily distanced, and, by his own con- 
fession, was easily duped into voting for the Derby 
Reform Bill, in the belief that it was to have been all 
that the most ardent reformer could desire. It is not 
wealth — not success in life — not a lucky speculation, 
that can compensate for the liberal views and opinions, 
which, it is true, education does not invariably supply, 
but which rarely exist without it. In an assembly 
which ought to be as eminent for its genius and talent 
and statesmanship as it is now lamentably the reverse, 
we want something more even than practical men. 



XVII. 



MR EDWIN JAMES, M.P. 



Lord, how this world is given to lying ! The remark 
is not original, but true nevertheless. What lies the 
higher authorities in Church and State sanction ! Of 
course we cannot wonder at lies in public or private 
life. When Smith tells you he is hasty to have the 
pleasure of your acquaintance, or that he hopes you 
will give him a call one evening, you are sure to find 
him at home. • You know Smith does not care a straw 
whether he ever sees you again or not. King David 
said all men were liars ; but, for unscrupulous lying, 
for lying like truth, for lying to the utter damnation 
of the soul, commend me to a barrister. Other men 
occasionally speak the truth, stick at enormous false- 
hoods, have now and then qualms of conscience, 
sometimes display an honest blush of shame ; but a 
lawyer, with a brazen face, with leathern lungs, with 
front of brass, under the convenient cloak of profes- 
sional etiquette and zeal, is, I fear, the biggest liar 



MR EDWIN JAMES, M.P. 203 

this side the bottomless pit. In the language of that 
great thinker, John Foster, I remark — " It is a re- 
markable and incontestable fact that, throughout the 
community, men of the legal profession have, as 
a class, collectively, a much worse reputation for 
integrity than any other class of men not direct- 
ly and formally addicted to iniquitous employments. 
There is a very general and decided feeling that 
their consciences are of a loose texture; that they 
easily make their own rules of right and wrong ; 
and that it is peculiarly hazardous and unfortunate 
to be thrown on their mercy, or to have any im- 
portant points of interest depending on the discretion 
of their integrity. . . Again, the public and political 
conduct of this class of men, as exhibited during the 
last melancholy stage of our history" (this was written 
in 1812), " furnishes a strong proof of the general 
baseness of their principles. It is nearly as a body — 
it is with a most extremely small number of exceptions 
— that they supported all manner of corruptions ; that 
they have fiercely and insolently opposed all man- 
ner of reforms ; that they have gone with the ministry 
(such a ministry as this country has been under dur- 
ing the last twenty years) through thick and thin. All 
this, or the substance of all this, it would be mere 
quibbling and folly to attempt to deny." Well does 
Bulwer make the chivalrous Captain de Caxton 
horrified at the thought of his nephew being a lawyer ; 
but in public life we make much of the race. A bar- 



204 MODERN STATESMEN. 

rister, of seven years' standing, is a great favourite in 
the eye of the law. If any berth is to be given away, 
any commission to be sent to make inquiries, any job 
to be done, we either send military men or lawyers. — 
Government could not well make worse selections. 
Hence it is there are so many lawyers in the House of 
Commons. The nation is to be robbed and plundered, 
and they are there to do it. I walk up Regent-street, 
and meet flaunting females all rouge and lies, I know 
what they want ; and if I go into the House of Com- 
mons, and hear lawyers with their tedious orations, "on 
public grounds, sir, opposing this detestable and perni- 
cious bill," I know what they want, as plainly as if they 
wrote on their backs the price per annum at which 
they were on sale. The time when lawyers were ser- 
viceable in the House has gone by. The country gen- 
tlemen, the commercial gentlemen, the representatives 
of our boroughs, can now make very decent speeches 
themselves, and the professional speaker, except in the 
case of some Indian nabob affair, or the injuries of 
Baron Bode, are of little avail. 

Sir Charles Wetherell was one of the oldest and 
truest Tories that ever lived. He would have died 
rather than voted for reform. To the men of Man- 
chester, and Sheffield, and Birmingham, and Leeds, 
he would have denied the suffrage, while Old Sarum 
and Gatton he worshipped with religious awe. On 
one occasion, while travelling through Sussex, Wilber- 
force stopped to change horses at an old country town. 



MR EDWIN JAMES, M.P. 205 

It suddenly occurred to him that that was the place 
which he represented in Parliament. He had never 
been there till then, as it were by accident. Could 
anything have been more absurd ? Yet this was the 
system which Wetherell declared to be perfection itself. 
But "Wetherell was a lawyer, and a clever one, as 
well as a politician. In his former capacity, he had to 
defend "Watson on his trial for high treason. Lord 
Brougham tells us that a lawyer must sacrifice every 
consideration on earth to insure the success of his client. 
Sir Charles Wetherell did so, and triumphed. The mob, 
in its profound ignorance, was delighted — it confound- 
ed the lawyer with the politician. Sir Charles Wether- 
ell was in danger of becoming as popular as Sir Francis 
Burdett; and actually an enlightened radical constitu- 
ency went so far as to offer its representation to Sir 
Charles. Mr Edwin James, owing to a similar 
blunder, attained his political advancement. As 
a liberal politician, nothing was known of him. 
He had come forward, it is true, once or twice, 
but, on each occasion, he had retired in a most 
mysterious and unaccountable manner. However, 
it came to pass that a man, of the name of Bernard, 
was tried for complicity with the Orsini plot. The 
trial was instituted at the desire of the French Emperor, 
who, in this case, was served very badly by Lord Pal- 
merston and his English friends. Mr Edwin James 
was retained for the defence. English sympathies, of 
course, were in favour of the refugee. The man was 



206 MODERN STATESMEN. 

acquitted, and the speech of his advocate was lauded 
to the skies. The speech was not a great speech, but 
it was that of a mob orator. It delighted small boys ; 
it was read with rapture in pot-houses. Was not the 
man who could utter such lofty sentiments, who could 
thus beard the French Emperor, worthy of a place in 
the House of Commons ? " Most assuredly " was the 
reply of Marylebone, who returned Mr James at the 
head of the poll. The triumph was the proudest mo- 
ment in the lawyer's life ; an archangel — supposing an 
archangel would go through the dirty work of a canvas 
for a metropolitan and enlightened borough — would 
have had no chance. On the hustings, immediately 
after the victory, I never saw a man much more good-na- 
tured, or heard a man more facetious, than Mr James. 
And the crowd were equally exultant ; one man, stand- 
ing by my side, informed me that that night would be 
discussed, in the House of Commons, the foreign policy 
of Government — that that night Mr James would take 
his seat — that there could not have been a more lucky 
circumstance ; and my informant intimated that that 
night his hero would make a speech that undoubtedly 
would make despotism tremble all over the earth. My 
informant was too sanguine ; he was evidently under 
the influence of beer. Mr James did not take his seat 
that night ; did not make his maiden speech there and 
then ; and, for a few days, the proud and perjured 
tyrants of the world had a merciful reprieve. Let me 
add that, when Mr Edwin James did make his dt- 



MR EDWIN JAMES, M.P. 207 

but, the effect was not very great. His plain intima- 
tion to Lord John Russell, that no reasonable offer 
would be refused, was considered indelicate and pre- 
sumptuous, even in a gentleman of the bar ; and, by 
the time the distinguished advocate had taken his seat, 
it was clear that he had let himself very considerably 
down in the estimation of the House. Yet it was ap- 
parent, even to the most prejudiced, that the hon. 
gentleman had much fitting him to gain considerable 
influence in any assembly. JNTone could deny him con- 
siderable fluency of language — considerable readiness, 
when on his legs — a voice well fitted to claim atten- 
tion, and a modest assurance not easily to be abashed. 
Then he was the chosen of Marylebone, and Maryle- 
bone is supposed to be one of the wealthiest, the most 
intelligent, and the most influential, of our metropoli- 
tan boroughs. Mr Edwin James sits below the gang- 
way, on the ministerial side, on the benches where the 
Manchester school, and the very crime de la crime of 
liberalism is gathered. Personally, he is inclined to 
be stout and red ; and his thick neck and full 
cheeks give him a decidedly apoplectic appearance. 
His figure is not one calculated for display, nor 
does he attempt it. He is generally very plainly 
dressed, and wanders about in the lobby as if 
he were desirous to have a chat with any one who 
would take the trouble to have a chat with him ; occa- 
sionally he may be seen talking with very seedy indi- 
viduals, chiefly, it may be presumed, deputations from 



208 MODERN STATESMEN. 

the Marylebone constituency ; for, undoubtedly, the 
metropolitan constituencies work their members hard. 
Every man with a grievance, goes to them ; every dis- 
gustingly unappreciated individual, if he be connected 
with a metropolitan constituency, looks to his repre- 
sentative to vindicate his claim, and to guarantee him 
his rights. Happy is the M.P. who represents the 
Orkney Isles ; his berth is a sinecure. He seldom sees 
his constituencies after he has once taken his seat. 
Fortunately, seas, mountains, valleys are between; but, 
alas ! a Marylebone constituent has only to get into a 
twopenny 'bus and is down upon his M.P. at once. 
Then, the Marylebone M.P. has to reside in his parish ; 
he must attend the vestry occasionally ; he must attend 
its public meetings. When its Odd Fellows dine to- 
gether, he must be there. If Jones' apple-cart is upset 
by a policeman, he must call the attention of the House 
to a flagrant outrage on a respectable and unoffending 
citizen. Churchmen are at him ; dissenters will not 
leave him alone; the licensed victuallers more especially 
claim him as their own. Every one of his constituents 
blessed with a crotchet is after him. Alas ! there is no 
peace for a Marylebone M.P. but "where the wicked 
cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." 
Marylebone may rejoice in her representative ; is he 
not a first-rate advocate, Recorder for Brighton, a 
friend of Garibaldi and the oppressed ? 

Mr James's success can be understood immediately 
you look at him. You can't put a man down who has 



MR EDWIN JAMES, M.P. 209 

made up his mind that he won't submit to such treat- 
ment, and Mr James belongs very evidently to this 
latter class. Nature has meant him for a successful 
lawyer, and has given him rare faculties for browbeating 
witnesses and humbuging juries. Mr James shines in 
this latter capacity ; the art with which he performs 
his task is admirable, and it is that highest kind of art 
which the victim never for a moment suspects. He 
seems to say so frankly, and with such an honest air, 
"Now, gentlemen of the jury, this is a very pretty 
tale the opposite party have been telling us, it sounds 
very plausible, and it might impose on some people, 
but we, old stagers, men of the world, shrewd, deep — 
very deep — very wide awake, are not to be thus led 
away. No, no, gentlemen, we — you and I — for you 
see through the matter quite as plainly as I do — are 
old birds, and are not to be caught with chaff." And 
thus Mr James gets the jury on his side. He gratifies 
their vanity ; he does not profess to make things clear 
to them ; he quietly assumes that they know as much 
about it as himself; his "cheek" — if I may use such 
a word, and I suppose I may, since our leading 
critical journal is actually quoted in the Slang 
Dictionary as an authority for slang — is perfectly 
bewildering, and must more or less insure success. 
You are first astonished, then applaud. Thus was 
it with Mr James's maiden speech. Its cool impu- 
dence was too much, even for that illustrious assembly 
of self-seeking placemen and loungers. Old sinners 

14 



210 MODERN STATESMEN. 

felt shocked at his refusal of office, except on certain 
conditions, before it was offered to him, just as ladies of 
a certain age are horror-struck at the boldness of pretty 
girls. But Mr James was in no ways daunted. He felt 
himself to be just as good as any one else, and, in a little 
while, he had proved himself to be as hard, and in- 
dustrious, and able M.P. as any other gentleman. He 
has secured his position. He has nullified all the preju- 
dices as to his being a failure. It is clear that, with 
a little more time, he will have vindicated his claims 
to the lawyer's reward — that reward which, I fear, is 
more potent than patriotism in a lawyer's breast. 



XVIII. 



SIR JAMES GRAHAM. 



The Life of Sir Thos. Fowell Buxton is one that de- 
serves to be studied by candidates for parliamentary- 
renown. In a letter to the late J. J. Gurney, Sir 
Thomas says the debate on the Manchester Riots 
" convinced me that I have the opportunity of being 
a competitor on the greatest arena that ever existed, 
but it also taught me that success in such a theatre is 
only for those who devote their lives to it." Sir Thos. 
declined to make the requisite sacrifice. Sir James 
Graham has paid the price and takes a foremost rank 
in any gallery of modern statesmen. He has devoted 
his whole life to the House of Commons, and he is a 
fair specimen of a House of Commons orator. " The 
speaking," wrote Sir Thomas, " required, is of a very 
peculiar kind. The House loves good sense and joking 
and nothing else, and the object of its utter aversion 
is that species of eloquence which may be called 
Philippian. There are not three men from whom a 

14* 



212 MODERN STATESMEN. 

fine simile or sentiment would be tolerated ; all at- 
tempts of the kind are punished with general laugh- 
ter." This was written before Parliamentary Reform 
was won, but the description is still applicable. Par- 
liamentary speaking has not altered in the least, and Sir 
James Graham, who won his laurels in the old days 
of corruption, is still a skilful debater in the greatest 
arena that ever existed. 

" Vidth and visdom grows together "was the remark 
of no less an acute observer of human nature than the 
respected parient of the immortal Samiwell Veller. In 
the case of Sir James Graham this truth is strongly 
exemplified. In a work, published in 1839, entitled 
" St Stephens ; or, Pencillings of Politicians," I find 
a chapter devoted to a trio of turncoats. One of 
them is Sir Francis Burdett — he has long ceased to 
interest mankind ; another, is Lord Stanley — as Lord 
Derby, he is now the leader of the Conservatives ; and 
the third is Sir James Graham, who is quoted as an 
example of " the wretched stuff which poor human 
nature submits to admire and wonder at." No man 
has been more odious in the eye of the British people. 
When Sir James, as Secretary of State for the Home 
Department, laid before the House of Commons the 
outline of his Factory Education Bill, the Dissenters 
raised such a storm that the hon. baronet was soon 
compelled to give way. When Mr Thomas Duncombe 
proved that he had opened Mazzini's letters, the fer- 
ment and outcry was greater still. At his head was 



SIR JAMES GRAHAM. 213 

hurled a torrent of abuse ; an ti- Graham wafers were 
advertised, and met with an extensive sale. One 
could scarce believe that Sir James was the same indi- 
vidual who had made radical speeches of the most 
violent character, who had a hand in drawing up the 
Reform Bill, and who, as Secretary to the Admiralty, 
had effected unexampled savings. And now, as you 
look below the gangway on the ministerial side, and 
see the gigantic form of Sir James, it cannot but occur 
to you that in that illustrious assembly there is not 
another man apparently so wise and wide. 

Good fortune has done much for Sir James Graham. 
She has made him one of the strongest men in the 
House of Commons, and one of the wealthiest ; and, by 
reason of those two qualities, has he ever been a man 
of mark. To hear a wealthy baronet talking radicalism 
thirty years ago, was something wonderful ; and, by 
reason of his immense physical capacity, has he lived 
down his unpopularity, his political inconsistency, his 
recklessness on the platform and the hustings, his 
bitter partizanship, inside St Stephens or out ; and his 
patriarchal appearance quite touches the heart of the 
stranger in the gallery. If there be truth in physiog- 
nomy, Sir James cannot be the atrocious criminal at 
one time his enemies affirmed he was. He has a 
portly frame and a most benign presence. See him in 
a parliamentary fight. Sir James Graham has always 
a meek smile upon his face, and as he turns to listen to 
the orator, the Sir Charles Napier it may be, who 



214 MODERN STATESMEN. 

pours out upon him the vials of his wrath, he seems to 
say, " Oh, go on, my good fellow, you are not hurting 
me, but you are injuring yourself." There he sits, a 
great mountain of a man, with a calm placid face, 
which apparently no storm can ruffle or disturb, and 
with a frame that would make its possessor conspicuous 
wherever men assembled. Perhaps you are a stranger 
to the House, and of an excitable temperament. I 
was wonderfully amused once in the lobby with a 
youth fresh from his father's flock, who seemed inclined 
to cheer an orator. fe My good friend," said a police- 
man in the gentlest way, " if you cannot control your 
feelings, you had better leave the lobby." Perhaps 
you belong to that class, and cannot control your feel- 
ings. As the orator grows frantic, you do the same. 
As his bile rises, so does yours. You turn the light- 
ning of your eye on the apostate knight of Netherby, 
the opener of Mazzini's letters, the betrayer of the 
brothers Bandiera — even in his green old age the slan- 
derer of Layard — and you wonder the earth does not 
open and swallow him up, as it did Dathanand Abiram 
of old. Wait a little while. The age of miracles is gone ; 
and yet I will show you a miracle. The orator sits 
down. Sir James is in no hurry to reply. Slowly he lifts 
up his big body and rises to speak. At any rate, you 
say, the House will hoot him — it does nothing so rude, 
it receives him with cordial cheers. Well, then, Sir 
James himself will speak with the faltering accents of 
conscious guilt — on the contrary, he is perfectly un- 



SIR JAMES GRAHAM. 215 

embarrassed. Well, then, his defence will be impotent 
and lame ; it will convince no one and disgust all — the 
real fact is nothing of the land. It comes out slowly 
and calmly, as if the orator felt its truth. Letters are 
read, but all in the calmest and most deliberate manner, 
which show how very right was Sir James, and how 
very wrong the wicked man by whom he was attacked. 
You never heard such a candid speaker in your life. 
He looks as if he would not do a naughty thkig for the 
world. What a depth of untold tenderness there is 
in that man's bosom ! How kindly he speaks of every 
one ! What innocent simplicity lurks in his face ! As 
he stands, slightly stooping, his arms behind his back, 
his voice seemingly broken with emotion, you fancy 
never was there a more injured person; and when he 
indignantly asks if it is to be supposed that he would 
forfeit the reputation of a life, when he declares that his 
character is at stake, that at his time of life — so soon 
to pass away from among men — it was monstrous to 
suppose that he would do anything so paltry and 
mean as that with which he was charged, your warmest 
sympathies are aroused for the injured baronet, and 
you become indignant as you remember how he has 
been the helpless victim of party slander, of personal 
pique, or lying tongues. 

His juvenility is, I imagine, another reason of Sir 
James's success. He is a boy, and will remain so to 
the end of the chapter. I know he was born in 1T92, 
that he has been in and out of office times innumerable, 



216 MODERN STATESMEN. 

that lie has sat on all sides of the House, advocated 
all sorts of measures, and coalesced with all parties ; 
but the enthusiasm with which he does all this is 
youthful. He is an artless, simple, unsophisticated 
boy, devoted to politics. He has accepted office be- 
cause he delights in activity. He has done some very 
mischievous and disgraceful things for the same reason ; 
actually, in some instances — as when he denounced 
Lord John Russell's Ecclesiastical Titles Bill — he has 
evinced a sagacity, for which few gave him credit, and 
which fewer still appreciated at the time ; but a boy 
he is, and will ever remain — his principles not yet 
fully formed, his judgment not yet fully ripe ; but 
still, from his position, from his abilities, from his 
cleverness as a debater, from his wide experience, 
from his intimacy with the great chiefs departed — a 
man with great influence in the House of Commons, 
one of the half-dozen whose speeches are looked for- 
ward to in every great political crisis. We all know 
Sir Robert Peel had a high opinion of Sir James, and 
Sir Robert's opinions had, and still have, immense 
weight in the House of Commons. In truth, in the 
House of Commons a man is judged independently 
of the opinions formed of him out of doors. Hence 
no juvenile indiscretion on the part of Sir James has 
permanently affected the high position he took in that 
assembly when he first entered it, and has ever since 
retained. 

Sir James is emphatically a man of the times and 



SIR JAMES GRAHAM. 217 

for the times. As a politician he is again in a some- 
what chrysalis state. Perhaps, as he has been some- 
what hard on the ballot, he intends supporting that 
when Parliament meets again. He, it is clear, has 
cut himself from the Derby party. For the same 
reason he can never be very closely allied with Lord 
John Russell. Sir Robert Peel was his Magnus 
Apollo, and, deprived of his leader, his course is some- 
what desultory. His main fault has been this, that 
as a hard-working, busy party-fighter, he has never 
studied politics as a science, never been above the tu- 
mult and turmoil of party — never risen into the su- 
perior elevation of the political philosopher — never 
got a glimpse of abstract principles. He has contented 
himself with politics in the concrete ; he has wrestled 
with parties and persons as we can imagine one of his 
ancestors fought in the jolly old moss-trooping times. 
Sir James's faults and official blunders have been those 
of his class. Fontaine tells us of a motherly crab, who 
exclaimed against the obliquity of her daughter's gait, 
and asked her if she could not walk steady. The 
young crab very reasonably pleaded the similarity of 
her parent's manner of stepping, and asked whether 
she could be expected to walk differently from the 
rest of her family. Sir James is like the rest of his 
family. Letters had been opened by previous Secre- 
taries of State, and when he opened Mazzini's letters 
he was neither worse nor better than others. If he 
lay about him pretty freely, it is the manner of all 



218 MODERN STATESMEN. 

faction and party fighters to do so ; and if he oc- 
casionally exhibits intense ignorance of the middle- 
class public — as shown in his Factory Education Bill 
— why, country baronets with thirty thousand a year 
have but little chance of understanding the shopkeepers 
and Dissenters of our borough towns. An amusing 
instance of this Sir James displayed not long since. 
In his speech, a session or two back, in favour of vol- 
untary education, Sir James quoted Mr Baines, of 
Leeds — not then what he now is, a member of the 
House — as " a man of talent, though a Dissenter ; " 
as if a man's talents depended on his profession of re- 
ligion. A man of more philosophical insight than Sir 
James would have known that genius and talent are of 
no church. Yet, in the House of Commons, so ignor- 
ant are the leading men in it, necessarily, such a 
phrase passes muster, and Sir James, no doubt, thought 
he paid Mr Baines a high compliment. 

Sir James's deeds will remain to vindicate his claims 
to respect. On the whole he has been on the side of 
progress. During the Reform agitation he did much 
to insure the passing of that measure ; and the aid he 
gave to Sir Robert Peel in fighting the great battle of 
commercial freedom was of the most invaluable charac- 
ter. As one of the faithful band of "paid janissaries" 
and " renegades," as they were termed by Lord George 
Bentinck, Sir James stood by his leader manfully, and 
fought with a courage the memory of which yet re- 



SIR JAMES GRAHAM. 219 

mains ; and when, by means of a combination of Pro- 
tectionists and Whigs, Lord John Russell was placed 
in office, Sir James helped to preserve the ministry in 
their free-trade career. 



XIX. 



MR W. WILLIAMS. 



It is very odd how little the general run of Members 
of Parliament understand business. How they can 
have passed their time to grow thus ignorant is a 
puzzle. There are, however, illustrious exceptions, 
and one of these is the Lambeth M.P. Just behind 
the Treasury Bench, at the end nearest to the strangers' 
gallery, may be seen a stout, tall, plain-looking gentle- 
man ; any one will tell you that is Mr Williams. He 
is elderly, but looks still strong and useful, and likely 
to do the state good service. When the late Joseph 
Hume died, Mr Williams, who prided himself on 
being his pupil, seated himself in the vacant seat, and, 
as a disciple, is not unfaithful to the teachings and 
traditions of his great and lamented master. 

The member for Lambeth has this one advantage 
over the men who laugh at him, that, at any rate, he 
has one idea, and that idea one of the right sort. He 
is not a learned man, nor an orator, nor a poet. He 



MR W. WILLIAMS. 221 

cuts no dash, even as regards his personal appearance, 
but he has an idea as to economy being a benefit, and 
is plain, plodding, and persevering. His figure indi- 
cates strength rather than grace. His speeches deal 
rather with facts and figures than with figures of 
speech, classical quotations, or great principles. In 
the beginning or the middle of the session you hear 
little of him. It is true he is in his place, it is true 
he patiently sits out all the debates, but he seldom 
addresses the House, and is seldom reported in the 
daily papers. Wait a little ; let July and August 
arrive, let M.P.s rush out of town in scandalous haste, 
let burning patriots, who have made grand speeches 
at the beginning of the season, deliver their farewell 
orations, shake off the dust of their feet, and indig- 
nantly depart ; let the long, dull, wearisome nights be 
devoted to the consideration of the miscellaneous esti- 
mates. When the benches are deserted, when jobs 
are done, when the money of the nation is recklessly 
and foolishly squandered away, when almost the only 
men who stop are those who have some little game of 
their own, then you will see — almost alone, with the 
voting paper in his hand, which he appears to study 
as if it were the charter of his salvation — Mr 
Williams, the Lambeth M.P. He rises and objects ; 
asks for particulars, gets snubbed by officials ; some- 
times he divides the House ; now and then he may 
snatch a hasty triumph ; but it is clear that his pre- 
sence greatly interferes with the harmony of the even- 



222 MODERN STATESMEN. 

ing, and that most of the gentlemen present wish him 
elsewhere. His role is an unpopular one, but it is one 
which the people who pay the piper ought, at any 
rate, to appreciate and admire. 

Mr Williams, somehow or other, has got it into his 
head that the nation would be much better off if dis- 
tinguished statesmen and leaders of the House had a 
better acquaintance with the principles associated, all 
the world over, with the memorable name of Cocker. 
A little reflection will show that Mr Williams is not 
so far wrong as is generally supposed. 

We put it to our thoughtful readers whether, in the 
general break-up of party, and in the confusion of all 
classes, which exists in the political word, the time has 
not arrived for a new party and a new cry ? A bitter 
experience has made the general public place very lit- 
tle confidence in public men. The painful truth is 
becoming gradually clearer and clearer to the most 
obfuscated intellect, that the aim of professed politicians 
is place and power rather than the promotion of the pub- 
lic welfare. It is true that the distinguished foreigner, 
who so often figures in parliamentary debates, were he 
to judge by the cries he hears during an election, would 
arrive at a different conclusion. " Palmerston and the 
vindication of our national honour," te Lord Derby and 
our glorious constitution in Church and State," "Lord 
John Russell and Reform," sound very plausibly ; and, 
as he rises from the perusal of the addresses of the ri- 
val candidates — as he reads how this one lives only for 



MR W. WILLIAMS. 223 

the public good ; how that one, a lawyer though he be, 
has refused office rather than not carry out his princi- 
ples ; how a third will die on the floor of the House of 
Commons, rather than allow an obnoxious measure to 
pass; and, above all, as he learns from innumerable 
paragraphs the virtue of the free and independent 
elector — he is in doubt whether most to admire the fe- 
licity of the public in having such devoted M.P.s at 
its service, or the good fortune of the latter in having 
so illustrious a body to serve. It is long before the 
real truth flashes across his mind. That the whole 
thing has much of the character of a farce ; that the 
election is really carried by a few dirty scoundrels, 
when contested, and when not, by the influence of some 
local magnate; that the patriotism of the candidate is 
about as sincere as the solemn conviction of an Old 
Bailey barrister, that his client is the most innocent 
creature under the sun, does not enter into the brain 
of the distinguished foreigner for a long time ; yet, is 
not such in reality the case ? 

Far be it from us to inculcate a spirit of political 
scepticism. The absence of public spirit is a bad sign 
of the times, it is, indeed, a political calamity when the 
nation does not believe in its public men. At such 
times — and surely the present is such a time — it does 
not become us to fold up our arms and slumber, but 
rather to rouse up ourselves to activity and effort. A 
great work lies before us, and a man who would seek to 
accomplish it would be a public benefactor. We are, 



224 MODERN STATESMEN. 

as a nation, weighed down with taxation; the tax- 
gatherer follows us from the cradle to the grave ; there 
is no solitude in which he does not find a place. Every 
year the evil is becoming greater. The Chancellor of 
the Exchequer gives us little hope for the future, and 
tells us that he must increase that tax which already 
presses so unfairly on precarious incomes. To the 
large landlord, to the enormous capitalist, an increase 
of taxation matters but little. Where an income con- 
sists of thousands, a hundred pounds more or less is 
not of much consequence ; but it is very different with 
the millions to whom a shilling of extra taxation implies 
the actual abandonment of some comfort or necessary 
of life. We want to know how long this heavy bur- 
den is to be laid on the shoulders of the people ? In 
ordinary life a man with a limited income, if he has an 
increased expenditure in one direction, economises in 
another. Pie wears his old clothes a little longer; 
takes a less expensive trip ; denies himself a few usual 
indulgences ; why should not a nation do the same ? 
Every farthing voted away by a British House of 
Commons is taken out of the pockets of the people of 
this country. This is bad in many ways. In the first 
place, people who can ill afford it have to make many 
sacrifices to meet the demands of the tax-gatherer ; in 
the second place, it is evident that so keen is the rivalry 
we have to sustain in the markets of the world with 
other nations, that it will be our extra taxation that 
will cripple us in the race ; in the third place, it is bad, 



. MR W. WILLIAMS. 225 

morally and politically, for ministers to have so much 
of the nation's money in their pockets. It is in this 
direction, then, that we must turn. The money votes 
will tell whether a man is a true patriot or not. "We 
want more Joseph Humes in the House of Com- 
mons ; yet, actually, so unpopular is economy in the 
House, that the senators sneer and would pooh-pooh 
the only man — we refer to Williams, of Lambeth — who 
does what few other men in the House have the ability 
or the courage to perform. Our thoughtless contem- 
porary, Punch, repeats the sneer, and an ignorant public 
applauds. Now Mr Williams deserves better of his 
countrymen, and Lambeth especially ought to be 
proud of its representative. It is no joke to stand up 
in the House of Commons to protest against money 
votes. The gentleman who does so must wait till late 
in the evening, and then, if he insists on a discussion, 
whippers-in, and members, and reporters, who are all 
tired and want to go home, are angry. Every man 
hoping at some time or other to dip his fingers in the 
national purse — that is, as regards the House of Com- 
mons — almost every barrister and naval or military 
officer at least, and a promiscuous multitude beside, 
however grandly they may talk on financial reform out 
of doors, are sure to take exception to the amendment, 
and vote with the majority. Hume lived long enough 
to overcome the odium of this, but Mr Williams must 
wait another ten years ere his constant perseverance 
will first be respected, and then become popular. 

15 



226 MODERN STATESMEN. 

Dod describes Mr Williams as a merchant and a 
Radical reformer, he is in favour of the repeal of the 
Inquisitional Income Tax, and for the ballot. As an 
author, he has published two pamphlets ; one on the 
-State of Education in Wales, and another on the De- 
fective State of the Representative System. He was 
first returned to Parliament by Coventry, which city 
•he represented from January, 1835, till the general 
election in 1847. He was first returned for Lambeth, 
July, 1850. At the last election there was some talk 
of a formidable local opposition. Happily, however, 
the good sense of Lambeth prevailed. When a con- 
stituency gets a faithful and hard-working M.P., to 
cashier him merely to gratify some paltry local vanity 
is very insane, to say the least. People who, for 
their own ends, throw dust in other people's eyes, are 
not to be blamed, but those who submit to that opera- 
tion, who are thus blinded and bamboozled, are fools 
indeed. 



XX. 



PRANK CROSSLEY, ESQ. 



The West Riding of Yorkshire is the parliamentary- 
blue ribbon. A king can make a belted knight, but 
it is not in the province of king or queen to create 
any man, however gifted, knight of the shire for the 
West Riding. It returned Wilberforce, and struck 
the knell of the slave trade. It returned Henry 
Brougham, and inaugurated the triumph of Reform. 
By its return of Richard Cobden, in 1847, all England 
felt that free trade had been secured. To canvass 
the West Riding a man must have a considerable 
amount of spare time, and energy, and cash, and if 
he be an unknown man, even these will fail him in 
the hour of trial. At the last election of Wilberforce, 
in 1807, upwards of 23,000 persons voted. The poll 
was kept open for fifteen days, and the costs of the 
contest were estimated at half a million. Elections 
are not quite such costly affairs as they were, but they 
are still far too expensive and wearying ; the conse- 
15* 



228 MODERN STATESMEN. 

quence is, the public lias but a limited choice. People 
select not the best man, but the best man with cash. 
In 1852 the registered electors for the West Riding 
were 37,319. It is not easy to reach this mass of peo- 
ple — a people perhaps less dominated over by landlords 
than any constituency in the kingdom — for little more 
than four per cent, of them live by agriculture. The 
candidate, it is evident, must be well known — he 
must have money, for that is a sine qua non in a West 
Hiding election — he must have brains, for in York- 
shire people mostly have big heads — and his politics 
must be popular, for as the aristocracy send their 
sons and scions into Parliament to preserve the go- 
verning power in their own hands, it is evident that 
the democracy when they have the chance will expect 
their candidate to do battle on their behalf. Now 
with all these conditions Frank Crossley complies. 
By honest labour and the exercise of his brains he 
has got to be where he is. He is a representative 
man. In our villages and towns there are many such, 
but they have not chosen the better path. They 
have become intemperate or dissipated, they have 
missed the tide which, taken at the flood, leads on to 
fortune, and they have listened to the Circe voices 
which wreck men's careers and ruin men's souls. 
All along our land they lie in swinish repose, the 
men who misrht have won for themselves fame and 
power, and conferred benefits untold on their fellows. 
If they have become rich, with ineffable littleness they 



FRANK CROSSLEY. 229 

have turned against the class from whence they 
sprung, and have vainly endeavoured to ape the 
fashions of those by whom they are justly derided 
and despised; but it is chiefly under the cloud of 
adverse circumstances that the capabilities which lie 
hidden in all men, as much in the Saxon peasant as in 
the Norman lord (for wonderful is the generosity of 
nature), are obscured and blotted out. Of too many 
it may be said, in the language of Gray, language 
likely to be applicable to large masses to the end of 
the chapter, that 

" Chill penury repressed their nohle rage, 
And froze the genial current of the soul." 

Happily, in Frank Crossley's case the " chill penury " 
of the poet existed only in a comparative degree, as 
contrasted with the wealth he and his family were in 
time to attain, and was soon turned into a genial af- 
fluence. Happily, we say, but it is not always that 
affluence has a genial effect ; it acts on some as an 
east wind, and withers up all the graces of human 
character. Some men it altogether ruins. God 
grants them their desire, but sends leanness to their 
souls. If they were Dissenters they become High 
Church, and sneer at the conventicles. If they were 
Liberals they become Conservatives, and think Lord 
Derby the most chivalrous nobleman under the sun. 
If they have poor relations they despise and cut 
them; they treat them as Jeames de la Pluche did 
poor Mary Ann. " Once for all," as that distinguish- 



230 MODERN STATESMEN. 

ed individual informed the Lady Angelina, "once 
for all. suckmstances is changed betwigst mejjand er ; 
it's a pang to part with her, says I, my fine hi's filling 
with tears ; but part with her 1 must." 

As an active philanthropist Mr Frank Crossley is 
well and widely known. Halifax, which he first re- 
presented in Parliament, and where his manufactory is 
situated, bears witness to his munificence. These Lan- 
cashire and Yorkshire people, when they make money, 
make it not as we do in the South, by hard and unre- 
mitting industry, but on a grand scale. And they spend 
it on an equally, grand scale. Go to Scarborough and 
see the expenditure of these men ; it quite pales our 
London extravagance; fortune has been liberal to 
them, and they are liberal to all around. No ladies 
are so splendidly dressed, so expensively educated, 
so well provided with handsome equipages, and the 
other outward signs of wealth, as their wives and 
daughters. And the wealth they have freely won, 
they freely distribute ; charity finds in them willing 
friends ; misfortune rarely appeals to them in vain. 
If the town in which they reside requires a literary 
institution, arboretum, or a park, they are not back- 
ward in giving it. A thousand pounds or two is of 
little consequence to them. And thus Mr Brown 
gives Liverpool a free library, or Mr Strutt presents 
Derby with an arboretum, or Mr Frank Crossley be- 
stows on Halifax a free park. And we all admire the 
generosity, and feel that such use of wealth — to the 



FRANK CROSSLEY. 231 

credit of our great merchants and manufacturers be 
it written — is by no means rare. For the successors 
of the Medici we have to look now-a-days to the mer- 
chants and manufacturers, who, in defiance of Mr 
Ruskin, have become rich. 

As a politician, Frank Crossley may be defined as 
belonging to his class. He is a manufacturer, not a 
landlord ; and he represents a manufacturing, not an 
agricultural constituency. It is just such men we want 
in the House of Commons. Men who have no connec-; 
tion with trade and commerce are sure to make a mess 
of it when they come to legislate respecting such mat- 
ters. As an instance, let me take the following extract, 
from the Times of October 6th. " It appears," says the 
writer, " a statement was published a few months back 
to the effect that a large trade might be opened up by 
a short land route from our Indian possessions to the 1 
western frontier of China, and the project excited 
very favourable attention among the commercial 
classes in London and the provinces. Any one 
glancing at a map of Asia will be struck with the 
proximity we .have already attained to China by 
means of our acquisitions in Pegu. From the port of 
Rangoon our territory extends towards China a dis- 
tance of 250 miles. We then come to the territory 
of the King of Burmah, and across this, which is also 
about 250 miles in width, we come to the Chinese 
frontier town of Esmok. We are thus brought into 
direct communication with that people almost at our 



232 MODERN STATESMEN. 

own doors, the whole of the navigation via Singapore 
and the Chinese Sea would be saved, and we should 
moreover reach a class of the population with whom 
we could never otherwise come in commercial con- 
tact, even if our political relations with the Chinese 
Government were of the most unrestricted and cor- 
dial character. "What, then, is the difficulty ? The 
first idea likely to occur is that the King of Burmah 
would throw obstacles in our way. Such, however, 
is not the case. The King of Burmah seems to un- 
derstand commercial interests better than some Eng- 
lish statesmen, for he is represented to be friendly to 
anything that will promote traffic through his do- 
minions. Apparently there is no difficulty except 
the old one. Our Foreign-office are not fond of new 
questions, and least of all of commercial questions. 
The Leeds Chamber of Commerce recently memorial- 
ized the Government on the subject. They repre- 
sented its important bearing on the interests not only 
of our home manufacturers, merchants, and shipowners, 
but of our traders in all parts of India. The Cham- 
bers of Commerce of Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, 
and Liverpool had previously made similar represent- 
ations. The reply has been such as to damp as far 
as possible all effort in the matter. Nothing was re- 
quired but a civil negotiation with the King of Bur- 
mah, which the Government alone can make, and 
that in any future diplomatic arrangements with the 
Chinese authorities the town of Esmok should be re- 



FRANK CROSSLEY. 233 

cognized as a legal place of trade. Lord John Rus- 
sell, however, thinks that ( much inconvenience ' 
might arise from such a i novel ' proposition. More- 
over, it would be ( impossible to protect British trade 
at so inland a city,' or ' to exercise due control over 
British subjects.' Next to the possibility of anything 
that might cause ' inconvenience ' to the Foreign- 
office, the idea of allowing f British subjects ' to run 
without leading-strings has always been most distaste- 
ful to that department. The Chambers of Commerce 
have likewise been furnished with a hint that they 
know nothing about the true interests of trade, since 
the very measure for which they are now praying, 
under the idea of extending it, would only bring it 
into jeopardy. ' Eedress for any wrong done in 
such a remote quarter as Esmok,' observes his Lord- 
ship, ' could in all probability only be obtained by 
applying pressure at places more accessible, and so 
placing in jeopardy the more important interests of Brit- 
ish trade on the seaboardof China.' " Gentlemen of rank 
in the Government departments do not see — as people 
connected with trade and commerce see and feel — the 
importance of little things — the advantages of even 
the slightest reduction in taxation ; that where the 
farmer feeds and maintains ten families, the manufac- 
turer, or large employer of labour, can do the same 
for a hundred, and that the primary care of a states- 
man or legislator should be that, in every way pos- 
sible, the taxes on industry should be annihilated and 



234 MODERN STATESMEN. 

the sources of labour set free. Gentlemen fail to un- 
derstand these things as great employers do, The 
latter have not had their fair share in Parliament. A 
change is taking place in this respect. It is time it 
were so, for so eager is the rivalry of commerce, that 
it is quite impossible we can maintain our position at 
the head of the world's markets unless we reduce our 
national expenditure, sweep away all vexatious im- 
posts — such as that on paper — from our statute book, 
and give the working man and his master all the help 
we can. If we do not do this, America, France, Ger- 
many — where the cost of living is less — will day by 
day surpass us, and we shall decline, as did Tyre. 
and Sidon in days gone by. It is for this reason that 
men like Frank Crossley are so useful in the House of 
Commons, and need to have their number increased. 
As to dogmatic politics, of course Mr Crossley is de- 
cidedly an advanced Liberal. We know what are the 
politics of his class ; the extension of the suffrage, the 
protection of the ballot, and the separation of Church 
and State. The temperance world find in him an un- 
compromising champion, and the dissenting religious 
public is familiar with his face when May arrives, and 
Exeter Hall is thronged. Dissenting ministers who 
have gone down to Halifax to preach have told us of 
their surprise at finding an M.P. and a rich and great 
manufacturer acting as a clerk, and giving out the 
hymns. But we speak of him as a statesman. 
In the House of Commons he is easily discernible 



• FRANK CROSSLEY. 235 

below the gangway on the Ministerial side. He is a 
strong, well-looking man, in the very prime of life — 
just such a powerful-looking man as you may often see 
in the streets in fustian ; and his black beard and white 
waistcoat render him conspicuous from afar. You can 
see Mr Frank Crossley is not a man to be daunted — has 
true Anglo-Saxon capacity for work and solid pluck 
— and if the time comes when statesmanship will be 
synonymous with administrative capacity, such a man 
will be in request. Surely it is no bad test of a man's 
qualification for office, that as a manufacturer, or 
merchant, or shipowner, he should have organized and 
carried out successful operations in many lands and 
amongst many men. Surely such an education is at 
least equal to that which can be acquired by contact 
with grooms and stable-boys, and game-keepers, and 
ballet -girls, and the toadies who always prey upon 
elder sons. Surely some of our ablest legislators — 
the men most potent in the Commons — are men of 
Mr Crossley's class. The admirers of our aristocracy 
tell us that it is the finest race in the world. You 
would not get this idea from a glance at the Commons. 
There are few more puny-looking men than Lord 
John Russell. You pass Lord Stanley in the street 
without giving him a second look. "We know more 
than one lord in the House who, all curled and scent- 
ed, and bedizened, reminds you rather of a baboon 
than a man. In Mr Crossley's pale and full, yet de- 
termined face, you read that his life has been one of 



236 MODERN STATESMEN. 

hard endeavour ; that he has had little time to 
waste. As an orator, you see that he is in earnest ; 
that he has no words to spare ; that he means what 
he says ; that he is not a professional talker — that 
curse of our age and country — and that when he has 
said what is in him, he will not detain you one 
moment longer. Hence it is seldom that he speaks in 
the House of Commons ; but he is regular in his 
attendance, and votes always — according to the opinion 
of his constituents — on the right side. 



XXI. 



MR BENTINCK. 

An attempt was made last session to repudiate the 
leadership of Mr Disraeli by a certain portion of the 
Conservative party, and an article in the Quarterly 
Review, supposed to have been written by Lord 
Robert Cecil, was undoubtedly a manifesto in favour 
of the attempt. It was clearly with reluctance that 
the Tory party were compelled to do homage to the 
strength of brain of their cleverest man and most 
accomplished debater. Had Lord George Bentinck 
lived, his lead would have been universally acknow- 
ledged. Upon his sudden and lamented decease, the 
respectable and virtuous Sir John Pakington would 
have taken his place, had he been at all equal to the 
position ; but as he was not, and as Disraeli was 
the only man who was,' the latter gained at once the 
lead, for which, undoubtedly, he had long been aim- 
ing ; but he did so under considerable disadvantages. 
In the first place, his origin was unpleasing to the 



238 MODERN STATESMEN. 

landed gentry ; in the second place, he was one of 
your " author fellows ; " and, in the third place, he 
occasionally indulged in language that sounded alarm- 
ingly liberal ; but there was no help for it, and so for 
years the country gentlemen followed Mr Disraeli 
into the lobby, and cheered him when he pitched into 
Lord John Russell or Mr Bright, as they always do 
cheer their chiefs. However, a change was at last 
determined on. On the second bench on the Oppo- 
sition side, at the extreme end, furthest from the 
Speaker, sat a very florid, large-limbed, light-haired, 
English country gentleman, by no means backward 
in addressing the House, and one of its most patient 
and industrious members. You rarely saw Mr Ben- 
tinck — for it is he of whom we write — absent when 
the House was sitting. Like Sir James Graham, Mr 
Bentinck is a man of powerful and well-developed phy- 
sical constitution ; and in the House of Commons, as 
almost everywhere else, physical strength carries the 
day. There is no standing up against matter ; you may 
despise it; you may , demonstrate its non-existence ; 
you may show how absurd it is for matter to wrestle 
with mind; but matter is omnipotent, nevertheless. 
Tom Sayers had more science than the Benicia Boy, 
but the latter would have, I believe, beaten the for- 
mer, nevertheless, because he stood a few inches 
higher in his shoes. In a crowd, the bigger a man is, 
and the louder his voice, the better I can see and hear 
him ; and the House of Commons is a crowd. The 



MR BENTINCK. 239 

House of Commons will not, like most crowds, accept 
mere bigness and hardiness ; unlike a religious crowd, 
for instance, it would not grow frantic in favour of a 
Spurgeon, but of a certain number of men who devote 
themselves to it ; and the House of Commons is a 
jealous mistress — as a rule, the most successful will 
be the men of size ; and Mr Bentinck is a man of 
size — one of the biggest men on his own side of the 
House. Mr Bentinck, born in 1803, is the eldest son of 
the late Vice-Admiral William Bentinck, representa- 
tive of a junior branch of the Duke of Portland's 
family, — entered Parliament, and was first returned 
for West Norfolk in 1852. West Norfolk is always 
supposed to be very Conservative, as much so as any 
district in England ; and Mr Bentinck is Conservative 
from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. 
Of the celebrated minority who, in 1853, voted a cen- 
sure of free trade, he was one ; and of course he is 
for inquiry into Maynooth. 

The position of Mr Bentinck may be described 
graphically as in the very heart of the Conservative 
party. Neither on the first bench of Opposition nor on 
the Treasury bench may you look for the finest speci- 
mens of unmitigated Whiggery or Conservatism ; on 
neither of those prominent seats are the clever men — 
the parliamentary tacticians — the leaders who do not 
wish to say more than they can help — to compromise 
themselves more than they can help — to excite too 
inconvenient an enthusiasm, or too audacious a hope. 



240 MODERN STATESMEN. 

Very old stagers and very artful dodgers are they. 
Somewhere or other, I have read of an Eastern sage, 
who advised his disciples in adversity to act as if they 
might one day be prosperous ; and, in prosperity, to 
act as if they might soon be reduced to want. The 
spirit of this precept is admirably carried out by party 
leaders on either side the House. Sir Robert Peel 
understood this better than any one, and hence his 
extraordinary success. When speaking, he always 
sought for what, in a letter to the Bishop ■ of Oxford, 
he called House of Commons arguments. In a letter 
to the same individual, dated March 20th, 1828, — dur- 
ing the Roman Catholic crisis, — he says, "The mode in 
which it is most prudent to discuss any question in the 
House of Commons, must be determined by a variety 
of considerations, of which it is not easy for persons at 
a distance to judge. One of these circumstances, and 
a most material one, is the prospect of being victorious 
or being beaten. If you are to be beaten, the higher 
the tone you take the more creditable it may be to 
the individual member who takes it ; but, let me add, 
the more complete is the triumph over the party on 
whose behalf it is taken." And thus all leaders speak 
with more or less reserve, and when seemingly most 
open or candid, are always, in the language of the 
turf, attempting to hedge. Lord Palmerston has 
done this. In the great free trade debate, Mr Dis- 
raeli tells us, in his " Lord George Bentinck : a politi- 
cal Biography," how, in the midst of a first-rate free- 



MR BENTINCK. 241 

trade speech, the noble premier expressed himself in 
favour of a low fixed duty on the importation of corn, 
and how the countenances of the free-traders changed, 
and how a metropolitan member, who had been ap- 
plauding vociferously, whispered to a friend, l( He 
has spoilt a capital speech ; what could have induced 
him to bring in a fixed duty ? " Lord Palmerston 
knew what he was about. Mr Disraeli adds, i{ There 
is diplomacy even in debate. Lord Palmerston threw 
a practised and prescient eye over the disturbed ele- 
ments of the House of Commons ; and, two months 
afterwards, when a Protectionist Ministry on moderate 
principles was not impossible, the speech of the noble 
lord was quoted by many as a rallying point." In 
the same session Lord John Russell did the same in 
the debate on the Irish measures, which he first ap- 
proved of, but was induced to oppose, when he saw 
that, by joining with the Protectionists, he could put 
Sir Robert Peel in a minority. Now, immediately 
behind the chiefs are the second benches, and on these 
second benches are the men who make brave speeches, 
and declare the faith that is in them without reserve. 
They have no need to mince matters, to be constrained 
or reserved ; they make the speeches which youthful 
politicians admire as bold, and manly, and outspoken ; 
and it is they who, when the time comes, at the bidding 
of their leaders, and for the credit of their party, very 
quickly swallow all their big words, and vote, not per- 
haps that black is white, but in a very different manner 

16 



242 MODERN STATESMEN. 

to that which you would have anticipated. In the 
House of Commons they answer a useful purpose. All 
legislation is more or less of a compromise ; no Minister 
can expect to carry what he likes ; no chief of opposi- 
tion can hope for victory in every struggle ; but it is 
well on either side that the extreme views of either 
party are uttered. Just as out-of-doors, by the platform 
orators of our public meetings things are said, and 
enthusiastically received at the time, the consideration 
of which may materially advance or retard a measure, 
and yet which, in the cool light of reason, may appear 
utterly senseless and absurd. Now, what public ora- 
tors are to the House of Commons the gentlemen on 
the second benches are to their respective leaders. 
They are the men who exclaim, " Fiat justitia, ccelum 
ruat" who never betray their principles, who never 
abuse the sacred trust reposed in them by their con- 
stituents, who have a solemn duty to discharge, (see 
parliamentary reports everywhere,) and will discharge 
it at whatever cost. It would be inconvenient for 
leaders of party to talk in this way. " No man knows 
what an hour may bring forth " is true everywhere, 
but especially in public life ; but every man has his 
opinions, and if it is inexpedient for him to state them, 
still he is not sorry to hear them ventilated by irres- 
ponsible speakers on irresponsible benches. Mr Ben- 
tinck, however, may be taken not only to perforin this 
useful work, but as more or less a representative of 
the county party — a party fallen in some degree from 



MR BENTINCK. 243 

its high estate, but still, very rightly, a formidable 
power in the House of Commons. No minister can 
stand against them — "the men of metal and large- 
acred-squires." How graphically has Disraeli spoken 
of their desertion of Sir Robert Peel, on the memor- 
able 25th of June, 1846 ! It was impossible, Disraeli 
writes, that he could have marked without emotion 
the secession of " the flower of the great party which 
had been so proud to follow one who had been so 
proud to lead. They were men to gain whose hearts, 
and the hearts of their father, had been the aim and 
exultation of his life. They had extended to him an 
unlimited confidence and an admiration without stint. 
They had stood by him in the darkest hour, and had 
borne him from the depths of political despair to the 
proudest of living positions. Right or wrong, they 
were men of honour, breeding, and refinement, high 
and generous character, great weight and station in 
the county, which they have ever placed at his dis- 
posal. He must have felt something of this while the 
Mannerses, the Somersets, the Bentincks,theLowthers> 
and the Lennoxes, passed before him." There was a 
time when land indicated everything — wealth and fit- 
ness for rule ; and the possession of ripe experience 
and administrative capacity were all supposed to reside 
in the landowners, just as, at one tinie, the clergy 
were the great statesmen of England, of Europe, of 
the world. And still the landed class must be a power. 
They have leisure, wealth, and can command a certain 

16 * 



244 MODERN STATESMEN. 

amount of political influence. They are of course Con- 
servative. The present state of things gives them 
power ; why then should they find fault with it 1 In 
the Army, or the Navy, or the Church, they find em- 
ployment and emolument for their younger sons ; why 
then should they seek for reform, especially as on 
all hands it is admitted to be difficult to stop the tide 
of innovation ? They have a natural horror of France, 
for in France there are no great landed proprietors, 
and the peasants are landowners, and almost as inde- 
pendent as themselves. They are partial to 

" Squires, with brains made clear 
By the irresistible strength of beer." 

In their way, they are well-meaning, honest men, and 
fervent believers in old ways and ancient traditions u 
Mr Bentinck is a fine specimen of the class ; but 
leadership in the House of Commons requires some- 
thing more — a something more which, unfortunately, 
he does not possess. Generally, parliamentary leaders 
have been distinguished men. The second-class men 
who have taken that high position may be counted on 
one's finger. Their time is gone by. 



XXII. 

EDWARD BAINES. 



Lord Holland was a "Whig nobleman, and, we dare 
say, gave on appropriate occasions the Liberty of the 
Press. Tom Moore was a gentleman of the press, 
and in common with more exalted literary gentle- 
men had the run of Holland House. We read in 
Moore's diary an account of a breakfast in that head- 
quarters of Whiggery in 1831 : "Talked of the state of 
the press, the great misfortune of the total separation 
that had taken place between those who conduct it 
and the better rank of society ; even from literature 
it had become in a great measure separated, instead 
of forming, as in France, a distinguished branch of it. 
Now you," he said, "and all the other eminent literary 
persons of the day, keep as much aloof from the gen- 
tlemen of the press as we of the political world do, 
and they are therefore thrown, with all their force and 
their virulence unsoftened by the commerce of society, 
to form a separate and hostile class of themselves." 



246 MODERN STATESMEN. 

We have here the accepted creed in good society. It is 
true Lord Palmerston tells us he has met Mr Delane 
of the Times in society, and he has had the honour of 
receiving him at his own house, that he found him a 
very agreeeble and intelligent gentleman; but then 
Lord Palmerston never was a Whig, and people at 
his time of life are not particular as to what company 
they keep. 

In England journalism, like virtue, is its own re- 
ward. Wordsworth tells us, 

" We poets in our youth begin in gladness, 
"Whereof comes in the end despondency and madness." 

But the poet may become a lion, may have a pen- 
sion, may die poet-laureate. All abuse the literary 
man. — Lord John Russell says he is prone to be 
discontented with the Government under which 
he lives — a feeling as natural to him as the at- 
tachment of the Bedford family to Woburn Abbey 
and the glorious Reformation. Undoubtedly the 
proper place for the journalist is the House of Com- 
mons. Did we proceed upon the supposition that 
governing was a science and not an hereditary gift, 
not a freak of nature, as the thick upper lip of the 
House of Hapsburg, but a capacity only to be found 
in men of strong natures, a capacity, moreover, be- 
coming stronger and wiser — as it is wisely nurtured 
and exercised, the journalists in the House of Com- 
mons would be a numerous class. As it is, the loss 



EDWARD BAINE3 24? 

is chiefly that of the nation, for perhaps the journalist 
is the only man in England who studies politics for 
their own sake. The scion of the aristocracy looks 
upon the representation of his division of the county" 
as one of his hereditary rights and duties — a bore, 
perhaps, but one of the penalties he must pay for be- 
ing so immensely cleverer and wiser than the rest of 
humanity. His father is the largest proprietor in 
Blankshire, and the estate always returns the M.P. 
That honour is transmitted with the family spoons, 
and will be till such time as Mr Bright's reformed 
constituencies shall ask of a man — not what acres are* 
his by the accident of birth — but what are his capa- 
bilities and brains. The lawyer would laugh at you as 
a simpleton if you supposed for an instant that he goes 
through the expense and trouble of a parliamentary 
election for any other purpose than that of his own 
promotion. The soldier or the sailor seeks a seat in 
Parliament for the same reason. The merchant and 
the contractor, and the manufacturer, are more prone 
to look after their own interests than those of the 
public. There are many well-meaning men blessed 
with long purses who are returned on account of local 
influence and unlimited expenditure, merely for the 
sake of a little natural and not discreditable vanity, 
but the journalist is the only man whose days and 
nights are devoted to politics, who knows better than 
all other men the state of public feeling, the ignorance 
or the prejudice and the passions of the hour, who can 



248 MODERN STATESMEN. 

best distinguish the genuine wants and wishes of the 
age, and is most given to the solution of temporary 
problems by the application of abstract principles and 
eternal truths ; and yet this is the man who most 
rarely enters the walls of St Stephen's. Kemember 
how the Tories despised and ill treated Canning, and 
how Whigs, like Fox and Lord Holland, underrated 
Sheridan and Burke on account, chiefly, it may be 
presumed, of their literary character. In politics, it 
seems as if there was a dead set against brains. It is 
true that we suffer for this ; that if we go to war our 
armies perish, as in the Crimea or at Walcheren ; 
that we hold India by an army where mutiny seems 
chronic ; that our taxation has reached a climax which 
to all thoughtful men is appalling ; that we have 
forfeited our continental friendships ; that nowhere 
are the poor so poor, so depraved, so ignorant, as in 
this land of enormous wealth, where we have an aris- 
tocracy and a State Church the wealthiest in Europe. 
It is true we suffer all this in good company, and that 
so indomitable is English pluck that we keep right in 
the main; but this could be achieved at a much less 
expenditure of precious treasure and still more pre- 
cious blood and brain. Tom Moore tells us of a party 
at which were present a country squire and a poet ; 
the former was wonderfully polite to the latter, and 
in adjourning to the next room offered him precedence. 
When told, however, the individual was a mere poet, 
" Oh ! " said he, " I know my place," and rudely 



EDWARD BAINES. 249 

pushing in before, left the poor poet to follow. Our 
statesmen treat the journalist in the same way. If we 
are ruined we are rejoiced to learn that it is not by 
what Lord John Russell termed, when he was making 
such a mess of it at Vienna, " the ribald press." Of 
the institution thus termed, Mr Edward Baines is one 
of the most distinguished members. Few country 
journals have a wider circulation than the Leeds 
Mercury, and of that journal Mr Baines has been the 
chief conductor and proprietor these many years. 
His father founded the paper ; was a model middle- 
class man, and represented the borough of Leeds ; 
and the son has religiously followed in his father's 
steps. He has been a public man ever since he has 
arrived at manhood ; but it was only at the last elec- 
tion, -and when he had reached middle age, that he 
became M.P. for his native town. Mr Baines, senior, 
was a Whig, for the Whigs abolished the Test and 
Corporation Acts, the Whigs made Leeds a borough, 
the, Whigs made Mr Baines an M.P., and the present 
M.P. for Leeds still retains that veneration for Lord 
John Russell which formed part of the political creed 
of all Whig families in the Reform epoch. Yet in 
some things he has outgrown his early training. 
The dissent of the present generation is more a mat- 
ter of principle and less of a practical grievance than 
it was, and Mr Baines is an earnest dissenter, and 
this earnestness has led him far from Whiggism. It 
is easy to see how this is the natural result of rigid 



250 MODERN STATESMEN. 

Nonconformity. If, as Mr Baines believes, the vo* 
luntary principle is amply sufficient to satisfy the 
spiritual wants of the nation, a fortiori the educational 
wants of the nation may be satisfied in a similar man- 
ner. Carry out this principle, and Government be- 
comes little better, as regards home matters, than a 
matter of police. Lord Macaulay, in one of his papers 
in the Edinburgh Review, in reply to Mr Gladstone, 
came to a similar conclusion ; but the difference be- 
tween him and Mr Baines is, that the one contemplat- 
ed the case in its spiritual, the other in its secular 
aspect. It is Mr Baines's religiousness that has made 
him a politician and an M.P., and hence it was the 
moment he became the latter that he obtained a Par- 
liamentary committee to do away with what is called 
the Bible monopoly, that is, a monopoly by whieh no 
one is allowed to print the Bible in England but the 
printers of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, 
and the printers to the Queen's Most Excellent Ma- 
jesty. His other public acts all flow from the same 
principle. Let the voluntary principle be fully car- 
ried out, and what, argues Mr Baines, what evil can it 
not remove ? Temperance societies will abolish drunk- 
enness, educational societies will abolish ignorance, 
religious societies — alias churches — will clothe the 
land with Gospel life and light. Mr Baines may be 
right or wrong, but we always know where to find 
him. Let the voluntary principle prevail, is the bur- 
den of his song ; this has led him far from Whiggery, 



EDWARD BAINES. 251 

otherwise lie is a Whig, and inclines to Lord John 
Russell's lead. Of the school, not growing, rather 
otherwise, and somewhat inclined to intolerance, of 
which Edward Miall of the Nonconformist is the 
literary, Edward Baines may be considered as the 
parliamentary head ; he represents a society which 
has a very long name, and which flatters itself that it 
has become respectable since it has dropped the vul- 
gar designation of Anti-State Church. As an orator, 
Mr Baines is in no wise remarkable. There is no 
brilliancy or attempt at display about him. He is a well 
made man, of average size, pale, industrious, and per- 
severing. As a man of business he bears a high charac- 
ter. In the House of Commons he represents the 
great middle-class dissenting public, a public that 
takes delight in missionary societies — in the anti-sla- 
very cause — in the promotion of peace — in philan- 
thropy in general ; and sure are we that in that as- 
sembly they could not have a more fitting or more 
creditable representative. 



XXIII. 



W. JOHNSON FOX. 



There is a virtue in our English constitution that, 
however aristocratic it may be, it is not exclusive ; 
here a low-born man may rise. It is true, at first he 
has a hard time of it, but it is equally true that, if he 
have talents — and sense enough to use them — he can 
climb up into a position of equality with the highest 
and the noblest in the land. When the Ten Hours' 
Bill was before the House of Commons, the late Mr 
Joseph Brotherton, then M.P. for Salford, alluded to 
the period of his life when he was a factory boy, and 
detailed the hardships and wrongs to which he was 
subjected, and the resolution that he had formed — to 
improve the condition of the factory hands, should 
he ever have the power. At the conclusion of his 
speech, Sir James Graham rose up and declared, amid 
the plaudits of the assembly, that he did not know 
before that Mr Brotherton had sprung from so humble 



W. JOHNSON FOX. 253 

an origin, but that it made him more proud than ever 
of the House of Commons, to think that a man rising 
from that condition should be able to sit side by side 
and on equal terms with the hereditary gentry of 
the land. A barber's grandson we have known to 
become Lord Chancellor ; a linen-draper's son, in 
our time, has been an archbishop. Privates rise 
from the ranks, and some of our naval heroes had 
names not supposed to indicate good family. A 
successful commercial career has also lifted a man 
into the privileged circles of the Upper Ten Thou- 
sand. Still, the cases are few in which a man 
without wealth or aristocratic connection has been 
chosen by the English people to represent them in their 
own house. Even when a class has been strong enough 
to send a man to St Stephen's to look after their own 
peculiar interests, his career has not been flattering 
nor his success great. The West Indian proprietors 
did not do themselves much good by returning Peter 
Borthwick. Feargus O'Connor got into Parliament, 
and Chartism immediately died out. The Tower 
Hamlets had little to pride themselves on in the suc- 
cess of Mr George Thompson ; and Edward Miall, 
though he once sat for Rochdale — and took a respect- 
able position in the House — was defeated, I fear, in 
not the most creditable manner, and has since found 
no constituency sufficiently independent of local in- 
fluences to return him. But occasionally we have an 
illustration of the fact that learning is better than 



254 MODERN STATESMEN. 

house or land, and this has been illustrated in the 
person of Mr Fox — whose father was a very small 
farmer in Suffolk, whose connections were of the 
humblest character, who himself worked as a lad in a 
Norwich factory, and who now represents one of our 
most democratic boroughs — that of Oldham. Mr 
Fox's position is creditable alike to himself and his 
constituents. Practically, it is an argument in 
favour of the extension of the franchise, which can- 
not be lost on a thinking, impartial public. 

Years and years back, in the thinly-populated dis- 
trict of Homerton, there was an academy — belonging 
to that most respectable body of dissenters then called 
Independents, now Congregationalists — presided over 
by that learned and pious divine, the late Dr Pye 
Smith, whose Scriptural Testimony to the Messiah is 
still an authority in theological circles. To this 
academy the youthful Fox was sent, at the suggestion 
of a congregation worshipping in a very ancient build- 
ing — yet, I believe, existing in Norwich — who had 
witnessed the talents of the youthful disciple, and 
deemed that he might become a teacher and preacher 
among themselves. Mr Fox passed through his. 
academical career successfully, and was settled, as the 
phrase is, as a minister somewhere in Hampshire. So 
far the result was favourable, and the Norwich people 
prided themselves on their sagacity. The time now 
arrived when they were to be disappointed. In those 
days Neology had not made its appearance, but Unita- 



W. JOHNSON FOX. 255 

nanism had ; and by the orthodox it was regarded as 
just as bad. To borrow a simile from Dryden's " Hind 
and Panther/' Reynard ravaged the garden, and pull- 
ed up and destroyed fruit and flower. One of the buds 
thus rudely torn away was William Johnson Fox. 
Possibly, he was of a disputatious turn ; possibly, he 
was led away by that celebrated William Taylor, the 
correspondent of Southey, who first made German 
literature known to the English, and who conferred 
on the old cathedral city in which he lived a literary 
reputation, which Norwich has ever since done its 
best to retain; possibly, Fox had never been very 
orthodox. However, the time came when he publicly 
abandoned the denomination to which he belonged, 
and became a Unitarian minister. Ultimately he 
settled down in South-place, Finsbury-square, Lon- 
don. His Sunday morning orations were a great suc- 
cess ; he gathered around him many of the wits of 
London — Dickens, and Douglas Jerrold, and Mac- 
ready were among his auditors ; he edited a maga- 
zine now defunct, wrote in the Morning Chronicle and 
other papers ; and as lecturer, and wit, and man of 
letters, took high rank in London life. 

Nor is this to be wondered at. A man of wide 
reading, ready memory, with a strong sense of humour, 
and inclining to the liberal and popular view of things, 
if able to talk at all may be sure not to talk in vain. 
The times also were propitious. When Mr Fox com- 
menced public life, people had not become indif- 



256 MODERN STATESMEN. 

ferent to politics, and struggled fiercely against the 
optimist conclusion — 

a 'Whatever is is right." 

The men with whom he lived had seen Sidmouth 
cover the land with a network of spies and informers ; 
had seen the Habeas Corpus Act suspended; had 
heard of the massacre at Peterloo ; had applauded 
while Hone badgered Ellenborough to death; and 
had sympathized with Hunt when in his cell for call- 
ing the Prince of Wales an Adonis of fifty. They had 
been seduced by Godwin as he wrote of political 
justice ; by Owen's New Moral World ; by Shelley, 
as he passionately inveighed against the society which 
had robbed him of his children, and had driven him an 
outcast from his ancestral home. They had seen Sir 
Samuel Romilly in vain pleading that a poor wretch 
should not be hung for stealing goods of the value of 
five shillings ; and their newspapers had told them how 
bishops and royal dukes had swelled the majority in 
the British senate in favour of the accursed slave trade. 
Hints that reached them of doings at the Brighton Pa- 
vilion — of the disgusting revelations of Mrs Clarke — of 
the great trial at Westminster Hall, when the character 
of an English Queen was at stake, had made the mid- 
dle and lower classes view with infinite alarm the 
aristocracy and all connected with them. In those 
days a powerful writer, an eloquent orator, could do 
much, and Mr Fox laboured at his vocation, and not 



W. JOHNSON FOX. 257 

in vain. It seems to me we have no snch orators 
now. It seems to me that we have fallen on evil 
days. It seems to me that duty has lost her charms, 
and that right or wrong are viewed by men now only 
with an impartial eye. I may be wrong — I hope I am. 
But it is time I point him out. You are in the 
Speaker's gallery. As you look towards the minis- 
terial side, about half-way down, you will see at the 
end of the fourth bench the subject of the present 
sketch. You cannot mistake him ; there is not such 
another figure in the House. There are fat men in the 
House, there are short men ; but there are none who 
so combine fatness and shortness as does Johnson 
Fox. There are serious, reverend-lo.oking gentlemen 
in the House, Mr Spooner is one ; but there are none 
so serious and reverend-looking as Fox, who not only 
wears a Puritan hat, but who wears it with a Puritan 
air, and whom you might easily imagine side by side 
with Praise-God-Barebones, or Hew Agag in pieces 
before the Lord. The upper part of the face is that 
of the divine, the lower part that of the alderman. 
There is a rare world of speculation in that eye, and 
of good cheer in that double chin. How out of that 
pile of flesh there can come forth a clear, articulate 
sound, and some considerable amount of superior 
thought, is to me a mystery, or would be, did I not 
see upon the shortest and fattest possible body the 
largest possible head, still adorned by thick masses of 
grey hair, parted in the middle and hanging down on 

17 



258 MODERN STATESMEN. 

each side — altogether a face resembling very much 
that of John Bunyan. Mr Fox's collar is down — no 
collar could stand up round such a chin — and an old- 
fashioned suit of black completes his tout ensemble. If 
his hat is on, you feel inclined to adopt the slang of 
the streets, and respectfully to ask the honourable 
gentleman, " Who is his hatter ? " for it is low and 
broad-brimmed, and of a style that never would have 
won the smile of a Count d'Orsay. The resem- 
blance, then, is complete ; and if you could be- 
lieve there were Puritans in these degenerate days 
— these days, when even the press has become 
nunkified, when actually one of our popular teachers 
tells us, that it is a sign of respectability to have 
an account at a bank — if, I repeat, that in such 
times as these you can imagine the men whose 
quaint words, and gloomy creeds, and self-sacri- 
ficing lives were heroic and marvellous then, and 
are heroic and marvellous still — still existent, you 
would swear that chief among them was William 
Johnson Fox. 

But Mr Fox is on his legs. What a clear, 
musical, yet somewhat melancholy and mannered 
voice he has — how studied yet how natural is his 
air — how effective is his humour, and how marvel- 
lous his power of constructing climaxes ! At any 
rate, there is nothing of the demagogue about him. 
There is no screaming, no vulgarity, no disgusting 
vehemence of matter or manner ; but he gives you the 



W. JOHXSON FOX. 259 

idea of gentleness, and thought, and power. You 
tell me he is monotonous. Well, so he is. He stands 
in the same position invariably, and speaks with the 
same tone. When you have heard him once you need 
not hear him again. Look at him ; his head is slight- 
ly on one side, his left arm crossing his breast supports 
his right elbow, and, as he declaims, the fore-finger 
on his right hand emphatically rises and falls. But 
Mr Fox is a speaker, not a debater. His style of 
speaking has been born elsewhere than on those 
benches, and may be read and understood as well out 
of the House as in it — as well next year as this. Mr 
Fox is the pulpit orator in the House of Commons. 
His speaking is that of a man who has, all his life, 
had a little perch to himself, in which he can teach, 
and from which he can lay down the law ; and Mr 
Fox is as much in it in St Stephen's as when stand- 
ing in South-place, Finsbury- square. Well might 
George Stephenson once say to Sir Robert Peel, 
" Why of all the powers above and under the earth, 
there seems to me to be no power so great as the gift 
of the gab." 



17 



XXIV. 



MR FREDERICK PEEL. 



The newspapers have just recorded the appointment 
of Mr Frederick Peel as Financial Secretary of the 
Treasury, in the place of Mr Samuel Laing. The 
office is an important one, and one in which a man 
inclined to be economical may do an immense amount 
of good in these days of extravagant expenditure. 
His duties are of the most onerous character. The 
Treasury is that department of the British Govern- 
ment which controls the management, collection, and 
expenditure of the public revenue. It is the business 
of the Exchequer to take care that no issues of public 
money are made by the Treasury without their being 
in conformity with the authority especially enacted 
by Parliament. When money is to be paid on ac- 
count of the public service, this is almost always done 
on the authority of a Treasury warrant ; and, in other 
cases, the countersign of the Treasury is requisite. 
The departments immediately subordinate to the Trea- 



1VIR FREDERICK PEEL. 261 

sury are the Boards of Customs, of Excise, of Stamps 
and Taxes, and the Post-office. The Financial Se- 
cretary, if he does his duty, must check the tendency 
to jobs on the part of the Government, and to extra- 
vagance on the part of the Commons. If he is a mere 
tool in the hands of his superiors, he becomes mis- 
chievous. An honest Financial Secretary may be an 
immense benefit to the nation. Mr Frederick Peel is 
well off — has a good character — much official experi- 
ence, and there is no reason why he should suffer 
himself to become a cipher. 

In England, the hereditary feeling is strong. We 
are not an ungrateful people. We pay our benefac- 
tors handsomely ; the lords who helped to make 
England Protestant did not labour in vain ; the 
statesmen of the revolution all managed to make it 
pay ; Marlborough and Wellington won something 
quite as good, in its way, as military glory by their 
splendid victories. No man devotes himself to politics 
for nothing, unless he is very poor, and cannot afford 
to buy a select constituency. Hear a patriotic journal- 
list : " See how I have defended Gladstone ! " says 
one ; " How I have always taken Lord John Russell's 
part ! " exclaims another ; " What man has done 
more than I have for Lord Palmerston ? " says a 
third. According to all these reports, these distin- 
guished gentlemen have been cruelly treated. It 
would not be so if they had a seat in Parliament. 
Undoubtedly, the Ministry of the day has loaves and 



262 MODERN STATESMEN. 

fishes at its disposal ; but the multitude is great who 
are hungry, and cannot be sent empty away. No 
miracles are wrought now-a-days. The only thing 
to be done, then, is to distribute the loaves and fishes 
as widely as possible amongst independent M.P.s. 
There is no law so strong as that of self-preserva- 
tion. The Premier would commit political suicide 
who would go out of his way to reward virtue out of 
the House of Commons, and be indifferent to the 
immense supply of that valuable article under his very 
nose. The Peel family are an illustration of the 
gratitude of the English people. Sir Robert Peel, 
from his childhood, was a politician. He was rich, 
and gifted, and of a good constitution, and he went 
from one office to another, till he became England's 
foremost man. He died, cut off suddenly, in his very 
prime, and there was not a town, or village, or se- 
cluded hamlet in the land, in which men did not 
mourn as if they had lost a friend. Did the nation for- 
get him ? — oh ! no. It extended to the sons the regard 
it had learnt to entertain for the father. Already 
they had entered on a public career. The elder one 
had tried diplomacy, as it was always understood, at 
a very considerable expense to his respected parent ; 
the younger one had devoted himself to politics. The 
deceased statesman's brothers had also profited by 
bearing his name, and had become one a general, and 
the other an Indian judge. If there be a Peel ecclesias- 
tically inclined, we may be sure he will die a bishop, 



MR FREDERICK PEEL. 263 

at the least. The family is one of the most popular 
in England, on account, simply, of the character of 
Peel the statesman. 

The contrast between the two brothers is of the most 
extraordinary character. Frederick has devoted 
himself to politics, and is the finest specimen of official 
red tape existing. With long, light hair neatly 
brushed on each side of his light- complexioned face, 
with his tall figure slightly stooping, his clothes of the 
soberest hue, all neatly brushed, he seems the very 
picture of a model young man. His great character- 
istic, I should think, is steadiness. I don't suppose 
he ever did an improper thing in his life. When the 
House sits, he is always in his place ; and when he 
speaks, if he is not impressive or striking, at any rate 
he does not forget what he has to say. He is never 
guilty of vehemence or parliamentary gancherie ; on 
a small scale, he is an exact copy of the great Sir 
Robert ; and, after all, he made a much better war 
secretary than Sir John Eamsden or Mr Monsell. 
Mr Frederick Peel is always respectable. Now, his 
brother is the reverse of all this. It is seldom he fa- 
vours the House with his presence, and it is seldomer 
he speaks ; and, when he does, it is generally admit- 
ted discretion is not his forte. Sometimes the House 
laughs with him ; sometimes at him ; but it makes 
little difference — he will atone for the failure of to- 
day by the success of to-morrow ; and he knows that 
so long as he lives Tamworth will never think of re- 



264 MODERN STATESMEN. 

turning any one else in his place. Then, what a 
jolly-looking, roystering blade he is ! He does not 
look careworn, like Fred, nor is he by any means as 
neat and proper. He has a tendency to fat, his eye 
sparkles with fun, his face is as red as that of an alder- 
man, and with his jaunty air, and his great oak stick 
in his hand, and a camellia in the button-hole of his 
coat, he strikes you as belonging to quite a different 
race to his brother Fred, and you find it hard to 
believe how such a man as Sir Robert Peel can be the 
son of the great statesman, who, in his proper sphere, 
in the House of Commons, was the most patient, 
the most persevering, the most prudent, and the 
most careful of men. The King of Brentford, in 
describing the characters of his sons, says of 
one : — 

" At school they never flogged him : 

At college, though not fast, 
Yet his ' little go ' and ' great go ' 

He creditably passed : 
And made his year's allowance 
For eighteen months to last." 

Similar language might be applied to Mr Frederick 
Peel ; but it is by no means applicable to his brother. 
The industrious and the idle apprentice of Hogarth 
scarce differ more. Position, of course, has something 
to do with this ; but the difference is a radical and in- 
nate one. One of the effects of the law relating to 
land, writes Mr Kay, late travelling bachelor of the 



MR FREDERICK PEEL. 265 

University of Cambridge, is, that " it emancipates the 
heir almost entirely from the influence and authority 
of the father. The son knows that his chance of 
succeeding to the lands does not depend upon his 
being dutiful or undutiful, moral or profligate, indus- 
trious or idle ; the father cannot stimulate the eldest 
son to exertion or honourable conduct by the fear of 
the property being left to one of the younger children. 
A strict settlement therefore diminishes, and, in fact, 
destroys, the inducements which would otherwise have 
actuated the eldest child in some degree, and it tends 
to render him idle, careless, disrespectful towards his 
father, and often profligate in his habits ; and having 
done this, it puts him into one of the most influential 
places in the country, as an example to the nation." 
It is wonderful, then, considering all things, that eldest 
sons should turn out as well as they do. Sir Robert 
Peel may yet adorn the family name. His gallant 
defence of Switzerland touched all hearts. Captain 
"William Peel is still held by the nation in veneration ; 
and Mr Frederick Peel, we may be sure, will not 
sully or discredit the name he bears. But if the eldest 
son is gay, and the younger one studious and pains- 
taking, we must remember one had his position made 
for him ; the other had in a great degree to make it 
for himself. It is true that, as the son of his father, 
he would have gained a patient and attentive hearing 
for his maiden speech ; but his subsequent success is 
due to merit of some kind or other of his own. I 



268 MODERN STATESMEN. 

doubt whether he will ever take very high stand in 
the House of Commons ; but he will be always safe 
and sure ; and very often in the race the tortoise beats 
the hare. Perhaps, indeed, it is better for us all that 
• it should be so. The Times, in order to spite Mr 
Gladstone, hailed the advent of Mr Frederick Peel 
to power in language unusually enthusiastic. Since 
then, however, Mr Peel has addressed his constituents 
at Bury, and as he has eulogised the Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, the Times has begun to sneer at its 
model statesman. Fortunately for our officials, the 
public soon forget the criticisms of the press, and the 
judgment of the press is by no means infallible. 
What is written in haste, is hastily forgotten. 

The Right Hon. Frederick Peel is the second son 
of the late Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, Bart., M.P. 
He was born in 1823, and was educated at Harrow 
and Trinity College, Cambridge, gaining consider- 
able honours in both institutions. In 1845 he took 
his B.A. degree as eighth junior optime and sixth 
classic. He was called to the bar in 1849, but never 
practised. In this latter year he was returned 
M.P. for Leominster, and on the 7th of May in that 
year signalised himself by his maiden speech in favour 
of the Parliamentary Oaths (Jews) Bill ; a speech 
which so much pleased the anxious sire, that he sent 
his son a cheque for the trifling sum of £10,000 im- 
mediately after its delivery. The hon. gentleman 
represented Leominster up to 1852, and Bury from 



MR FREDERICK PEEL. 267 

1852 to 1857, not being returned at the general elec- 
tion of the latter year. He was Under Secretary for 
the Colonies 1851-52 and 1853-55; Under Secretary 
for War 1855-57 ; and on resigning office, owing to 
the loss of his seat in Parliament, was made a privy 
councillor. He was again returned for Bury in 
1859. 



XXV. 



MR BERNAL OSBORNE. 



Why should English gentlemen engage in politics? 
As a profession, it does not pay. Lord John Russell 
is not supposed to be immensely wealthy; yet he 
must have spent, in election contests and for election 
purposes, quite as much as he has ever received back 
in the shape of official salary. We all know what 
serious remonstrances were made by the firm with 
which Mr Poulet Thompson was connected, on account 
of the money he spent with a view to secure himself a 
seat in Parliament. Theoretically, the system is as 
bad as it can well be. "I bought you," said an 
exultant M. P. to a discontented constituency, on one 

occasion, " and, by G , I '11 sell you." Such a 

feeling, of course, naturally rises in the hearts of 
men who have acquired their parliamentary position 
by their wealth ; and some Radicals will always prove 
to you, that if a man parts with his cash, unless he 
be born a fool, he does not do it for nothing. It is 



MR BERNAL OSBORNE. 269 

too bad such should be the case. We can never 
expect a reformed House of Commons till we get 
M.P.s to be ashamed of the dirty and disgraceful 
work at election contests. Constituents and M.P.s 
are deeply dishonoured with such things. I do not 
know who are the most to blame — the scoundrels 
who are dirty enough to bribe, or the scoundrels 
who are dirty enough to take the bribe. Is it 
not strange that we get men of honour on either side 
of the House ? 

The Osborne family illustrate and confirm this view. 
Some years back there was a very respectable gentle- 
man M.P. for Rochester and chairman of committees 
in the House of Commons. In the discharge of his 
duties in this latter capacity he received the respect- 
able allowance of twelve hundred a-year; but, in order 
to secure that sum, he had paid away in the course of 
his life a sum amounting, it is said, to £60,000. This 
gentleman was the father of the present M.P. for 
Liskeard. A description of the former will almost 
suit the latter. Mr Grant thus describes Mr Bernal : — 
i( His face is round, and his features are intelligent 
and agreeable; his complexion indicates an ample 
stock of health ; he has a fine forehead ; his hair is 
of a dark brown colour ; he is of Jewish description ; 
he is a commanding person, and in the prime of life." 
The resemblance may be carried still further. Mr 
Grant says of the father, that " he speaks very seldom, 
and never at any length on any question of command- 



270 MODERN STATESMEN. 

ing importance." The son, also, in common with the 
father, illustrates the fallacy involved in the idea that 
the House of Commons is a place for common people. 
Both have found that the parliamentary existence, as 
a rule, requires a very considerable property qualifi- 
cation. Some people will tell you it is abolished. It 
is not, nor ever will be. The more democratic is a 
constituency the more essential a requisite will it be 
for its representative to be a man of wealth. What 
could a poor M.P. do in Westminster, or Finsbury, or 
Marylebone, or the Tower Hamlets, without being 
backed by large sums of money ? If by a miracle he 
were to be returned, depend upon it his constituency 
would soon tire of him. I write this with full know- 
ledge of the fact that the House of Commons forbids 
bribery at elections, and that the returns of expenses 
certified by the auditor appointed for the purpose are 
ridiculously small. It is really wonderful, consider- 
ing all things, how we get such good members of 
Parliament as we do ; and that we do get them at all 
is, we fear, in a very small degree the fault of the 
electors, but chiefly the result of that esprit de corps 
which exists amongst English gentlemen, and which 
is even found in an assembly of patriots. It is not 
knowingly that the House of Commons is a party to 
anything dirty or mean. When they truckled to the 
Lords, and suffered the latter to continue the paper 
tax which they had rejected, they did so because 
there was not spirit enough in the country to back 



MR BERNAL OSBORNE. Zii 

them, if they had resisted the dictation of the Lords. 
The event proved they were right. There was a 
Constitutional Defence Committee formed, but it was 
found impossible to get up the steam. The Reform 
Bill languished and died for a similar reason. If the 
nation had cared for reform we should have had it. But 
to return to Mr Osborne ; he is the saucy boy — the enfant 
terrible — of the House of Commons. He is the charter- 
ed libertine of the Liberal party. He is popular in the 
House, and popular out of doors. His speeches are 
always reported at considerable length, and — if we 
may believe the reporters, and I see no reason to 
doubt them — they always elicit a great deal of laugh- 
ter. He makes much fun out of Mr Newdegate; 
and nothing pleases him better than to see Mr 
Spooner shake his grey and reverend head. Occa- 
sionally he flies at higher game, and is only too happy 
if he can catch Mr Disraeli napping. He has plenty 
of fun — the fun of a good constitution and of animal 
spirits, and that fun he infuses into his speeches. 
Occasionally, he is very happy ; thus, in his speech 
on the Derby-Disraeli Reform Bill, he protested 
against such " political millinery." " The franchise," 
he contended, " would be completely at the mercy of 
a scolding landlady or smoky chimney/' He inti- 
mated to Mr Disraeli that he had a heavy omnibus 
of country gentlemen to pull up the hill. Mr Osborne 
is also great in interruptions, and pretty often raises a 
laugh. Thus, when Mr Heywood was gravely arguing 



272 MODERN STATESMEN. 

in favour of the retention of the Crystal Palace in 
Hyde Park, on the ground that gentlemen had no 
place of amusement at the West-end, Mr Osborne's 
question, " Where is Cremorne 1" was greatly to the 
amusement of a House always disposed to laugh, even 
when hard at work. The wit in which Mr Osborne 
deals is not difficult of achievement. Sydney Smith 
writes—" It is argued that wit is a sort of inexplicable 
visitation, that it comes and goes with the rapidity of 
lightning, and that it is quite as unattainable as beauty 
or just proportion. I am so much of a contrary way 
of thinking, that I am convinced a man might sit down 
as systematically and as successfully to the study of wit 
as he might to the study of mathematics ; and I would 
answer for it that, by giving up only six hours a-day to 
learning wit, he should come on prodigiously before 
midsummer, so that his friends should hardly know him 
again/' Parliamentary wit, it is clear, is often studied 
and far-fetched. MrWilberforce said of Sheridan, that 
general impression was,that he came to theHouse of Com- 
mons with his flashes prepared and ready to let off. Mr 
Osborne, we fancy, resembles Sheridan in this respect. 
He is not a frequent debater. It is seldom he attempts 
to catch the Speaker's eye. So long as he is in office, he 
generally contents himself with a silent vote. Out of 
office he is vehement ; or if the ministry with which 
he is connected be in danger, he exerts himself, and 
makes one or two telling speeches. While M.P. for 
Dover, and at the Admiralty, he made no complaints ; 



MR. BERNAL OSBORNE. 273 

but no sooner was he turned out of Dover, and a 
Conservative in his place, than his righteous soul was 
grieved beyond all endurance at the corrupt adminis- 
tration at the Admiralty. Such a state of affairs was 
intolerable, and not to be borne ; but Mr Osborne once 
more at his old place, and he sleeps quietly, only 
waking up at quarter-day. It is as a parliamentary 
wit, rather than as a statesman, or debater, or able 
administrator, that Mr Osborne's reputation is based. 
Now, wit in the House of Commons, or in any large 
assembly, is of the lowest possible character. For 
instance, how childish is a joke of Lord Campbell's, or 
other facetious judge on the bench, when it appears in 
print, and yet with what shouts of laughter was it 
received ! The cause of this is twofold : in the first 
place, in a business assembly, when men's minds have 
long been on the stretch, the faintest excuse for a smile 
is welcomed as a grateful relief and change ; in the 
second place, there is a contagious principle in jokes 
as well as in fevers. A man is acted on by others. You 
laugh when you see others around you laughing. Go 
to a crowded theatre or public meeting. There is a 
mass of human bodies piled up in front of you, so 
you can neither see nor hear actor or speaker, wherever 
and whichever he may be ; yet you hear every 
one around you laughing, and you do the same. 
The wits of the House of Commons are not very witty 
men. Lord Palmerston, Mr Berkeley, and Mr Os- 
borne are, for instance.,, not to be named in the same 

18 



274 MODERN STATESMEN. 

day with. Mr Canning ; but they are successful in rais- 
ing laughter for the reasons I have already mentioned. 
The ready wit of a good, sound, physical constitution is 
invaluable in a man who is in a position to be a little 
independent and impudent. In a poor man, of course, 
it would not be tolerated an instant ; but Mr Osborne 
is not poor, and hence he successfully elicits the loud 
laugh, that speaks the vacant mind. Besides, an impu- 
dent man is always a successful one. There is no 
standing up against impudence. Sir Peter Laurie 
cannot put it down. It acts on us as the poet says vice 
acts on us — "We are first shocked; then endure; then 
embrace." The Marylebone vestry were in arms against 
Mr Osborne because he called them a lot of political 
tinkers — we should like to have seen the expression of 
Mr Osborne's face as he seriously assured them that 
" thinkers " was the word he used. The exhibition 
must have been amusing in the extreme. 

Mr Osborne's career may be very easily told. He 
began life in the army. He then became a Liberal 
M.P. in favour of the ballot and free trade. In 1852 
he was appointed Secretary for the Admiralty. He 
sat in Parliament as M.P. for Wycombe from 1841 
to 184T, when he was returned for Middlesex. His 
connection with the Admiralty helped to return him 
for Dover. Being, however, ultimately driven out of 
that borough, when the Tories had the command of the 
Admiralty influence, he retired into private life. To 
Liskeard is the merit due of having restored him to 
the public service. Liskeard might have done worse. 



XXVI. 



MR THOMAS S. DUNCOMBE. 



ISu ^ount of parliamentary orators would be com- 
plete or sa: xtory that did not include the name 
of Mr Duncombe. It is true he belongs to the past 
rather than to the present ; but he was the pet of the 
people at one time, has done good service in his day, 
and represents a class of men becoming rare. The 
gay young aristocrats, who went in for popular ap- 
plause, have been a numerous class. When we think 
of them, the names of Alcibiades, Count Mirabeau, 
and Charles James Fox, instinctively recur to our 
minds. They had a love of liberty which they car- 
ried out to the fullest extent. They were the wonder 
and admiration of their contemporaries. How intense 
was their contempt of money, how ardent was their 
pursuit of pleasure, and how complete was their devo- 
tion to the cause of the people ! Men smiled on them, 
and women too. In this soberer age of ours, we 
can scarce understand their ways, or do justice to 
18* 



276 MODERN STATESMEN. 

their character. Mr Duncombe is almost the last of 
his class. A rising statesman now must work hard to 
win his laurels. He must lecture at Mechanics' In- 
stitutions, he must attend at the sitting of the Social 
Congress, he must be always at his place in Parlia- 
ment, and, if he appears on the platform of Exeter 
Hall, so much the better. It may be that we have 
gained in honesty, but I am not quite so sure of that. 
There are whited sepulchres now as there were when 
the Gospel story was first published to the world. 

Middle-aged and elderly gentlemen will tell yoti 
that young Thomas Duncombe, then M.P. for Hert- 
ford, was one of the handsomest and gayest men about 
town some twenty or thirty years ago. Whatever are 
their politics, they will all confess how dashing was 
his appearance, how sparkling was his eye, how mu- 
sical his voice, and how gentlemanly his breeding. 
I take up a series of parliamentary portraits by a Con- 
servative writer. He says, " If the shade of Beau 
Brummell had revisited the earth to nominate his 
presiding genius in the departments of fashion in 
the senate, his choice must have fallen on the hon- 
ourable member, for in person Duncombe is the 
beau ideal of a gentleman ; dresses well, and always 
in keeping, as far as fashion goes, with its most 
approved modes; never seen with less than a 
brilliantly-polished and well-fitting boot, a smart, 
somewhat d'Orsay hat, beautiful lavender or straw- 
coloured kid gloves, and a turn-out, by way of equi- 



MR THOMAS S. DUNCOMBE. 277 

page, worthy of an aristocrat of the highest order. 
If a line be pardoned in favour of his personal at- 
tractions, we might venture to observe, in conclusion, 
that if the days of chivalry were returned, and a dash- 
ing cavalier selected from some gay troubadours to pay 
homage to the shrine of his ladye love, few knights 
would stand more prominent in the ranks than the 
popular M.P. for Finsbury." Mr James Grant, in 
his " Random Recollections," gives an equally agree- 
able character of Mr Duncombe. He was then a 
favourite in the House and a favourite out of doors. 
Of course, much was due to his singularly-attractive 
personal appearance. Few could be angry with such 
a well-bred, agreeable man of the world. However 
extreme might be his opinions, however uncompro- 
mising his speeches, however he might tease and irri- 
tate in office (for when Mr Duncombe was an ardent 
politician there were thousands of Chartists in the 
country — men who believed in Feargus O'Connor 
and the Northern Star, of whom Mr Duncombe was 
the mouth- piece), somehow or other men did not get 
angry when the Finsbury M.P. was on his legs. 
There was always a merry twinkle in his eye, as if he 
were in fun, and then his manner was so easy, his 
voice so pleasant, his tact so admirable, that his bit- 
terest enemies could not find it in their hearts to be 
angry. It was seldom that he made long and labour- 
ed speeches ; his forte was rather in asking questions, 
in presenting ultra-Radical petitions^ and in making 



278 MODERN STATESMEN. 

statements relative to aggrieved (more especially 
Finsbury) individuals ; and this he did to perfection. 
No man in the House had a happier knack of giving 
a clear, intelligible statement in a manner simple and 
unaffected, and of occasionally relieving it with a 
little touch of humour ; and when he took up the case 
of Mazzini, and convicted Sir James Graham of open- 
ing letters sent through the Post Office, he achieved 
a triumph of which almost every man, woman, and 
child in the British dominions was proud. The old 
poet tells us of a certain individual, that 

" If to his share some trifling errors fall, 
Look in his face, and you'll forget them all." 

Duncombe could stand this test better than any man 
in the House ; and yet he was not merely a Liberal 
but an ultra-Radical, when merely to be Radical 
was to be low, and ungentlemanly, and little better 
than one of the wicked. How came Mr Duncombe 
connected with such a set ? the question is interest- 
ing. Sheridan said Lord Holland (Tom Moore is our 
authority) was an annual parliament and universal 
suffrage man, but it seemed rather as a waggery that he 
adopted it. " There is nothing like it, he would say ; 
it is the most convenient thing in the world. When 
people come to you with plans of reform, your answer 
is ready, Don't talk to me of your minor details. I 
am for annual parliament and universal suffrage ; no- 
thing short of that." Did Duncombe act in this man- 



MR THOMAS S. DUNCOMBE. 279 

ner ? The thought is uncharitable, yet some burning 
and shining lights of the popular party have been 
open to the charge. We are told Wilkes was indig-, 
nant when taken for a Wilkesite. Men often act 
from mixed motives, and even patriots are imperfect. 
Mr Duncombe can, however, do what few men can — 
point to an independent career of many years. There 
was a time when the sweets of office would have been 
acceptable ; yet he has remained unshackled by its 
trammels, nor has he, even to please the very large 
religious public of Finsbury, in any way identified 
himself with their proceedings. I never heard even 
of his being at a Ragged School meeting, or subscrib- 
ing a farthing for the reforming young females. This 
is something, when we remember how old sinners by , 
such means die in the odour of sanctity, — when we 
remember that our Solicitor- General has just laid the 
foundation of a Primitive Methodist Chapel, and when 
we remember the Wolverhampton speech of Sir Rich- 
ard Bethell. But I have been speaking of Mr Dun- 
combe as he was ; let me describe him as he is. The 
gay Tom Duncombe of the fashionable world is now 
sedate and elderly, keeps good hours, and takes great 
care of his health. You do not often see him in the 
House after midnight, and it is seldom that he speaks 
now after the dinner-hour. The agile frame is now 
almost a skeleton ; age has dimmed those eyes once 
so full of fire and light; the jet-black hair is gone, 
and in its place we have a wig ; the pleasing, cheery 



280 



MODERN STATESMEN.. 



voice sounds now very hollow and reedy ; yes, there, 
behind the Treasury benches — that pale, tall, thin, 
elderly gentleman in black — is all that remains of that 
universal favourite, Tom Duncombe. To this com- 
plexion we must come at last. There is still about 
him something of the old style. In that hour devoted 
to notices of motion and questioning of Ministers be- 
fore the orders of the day are read, Mr Duncombe 
often speaks, and almost as effectively as of yore — 
often, as of old, by his ready wit, provoking laughtei* ; 
but he is growing old, and let us hope that he may do 
so for many, many years to come. We, in these latter 
days, have reason to be thankful to men who, like 
Duncombe, aided in the great struggle of the past. 
^Religiously, and commercially, and politically free, 
the last thirty years have been years of wonderful 
progress, of softening of party hates, of abandonment 
of prejudice, of rooting out of error, of exploding ab- 
surdities and injustices, and for this we have to thank 
men like Duncombe. 

His career, as I have intimated, has been a long 
one. His parliamentary existence began in 1824, 
when he sat for Hertford, which place he continued 
to represent till 1832, when he was ejected by Lord 
Ingestre, the honour of which was not long enjoyed, 
as a petition against Lord Ingestre's return, by the 
friends of Mr Duncombe, had the effect of unseating 
the noble lord. In 1834 the retirement of the Right 
Hon. Robert Grant caused a vacancy for Finsbury, 



MR THOMAS S. DUNCOMBE. 281 

and, agreeably to the powerful requisition of its elect- 
ors, Mr Thomas Duncombe, according to his own 
words, " was translated, as the bishop says, to its see." 
By descent Mr Thomas Slingsby Duncombe is the de- 
scendant of a staunch line of Tory ancestry. His father 
was a brother of Lord Faversham, and his mother was 
the daughter of a High Churchman, Dr HinchclifFe, 
Bishop of Peterborough. His connections are not of 
the class from which advocates of the Charter have 
sprung, though, possibly, his birth and breeding may 
have tended to make him more acceptable to Fins- 
bury constituencies. Dod briefly sums up the gen- 
tleman's political creed as follows : — " A Badic'al re- 
former, is in favour of triennial parliaments and the 
ballot." Said I not rightly, Mr Duncombe belongs 
to the past rather than the present ? ■ What elections 
now are decided with reference to triennial parlia- 
ments and the ballot ? We have got beyond these 
formulas. The years have brought to us 

" A higher height — a deeper deep." 

I question if even a declaration of attachment to a 
complete and comprehensive measure of parliamentary 
reform would secure a single vote. 



XXVII. 



THE RIGHT HON. E. HOR8MAN. 



Mr Horsman, the M.P. for Stroud, is unfortunate in 
his parliamentary position. He is a man of first-rate 
abilities ; he is an admirable speaker ;• but he is an 
independent M.P., and an independent member is an 
unpopular one. Yet he did not begin life as an inde- 
pendent member. He was not averse to office when 
Cockermouth sent him to parliament, pledged to vote 
in favour of " an efficient Church reform, of vote by- 
ballot, and of the removal of all taxes on knowledge." 
In 1841 he was one of the Lords of the Treasury. 
At a later period, when M.P. for Stroud, he was Irish 
Secretary — an office which he professed himself to 
have resigned because the salary was too great and 
the duties too light — an office in which, however, it is 
said, he contrived to offend most of the Irish M.P.s 
with whom he came in contact. Since that time 
more than one Liberal administration has been form- 



THE RIGHT HON. E. HORSMAN. 283 

eel ; on the Treasury benches have been seated M.P.s 
with nothing of Mr Horsman's abilities, experience, 
or parliamentary position. Such a state of things Mr 
Horsman does not approve of; and hence the sharp- 
est thorn in the Ministerial side of the House is no 
other than the Liberal M.P. for Stroud. 

Speaking of Mr Peel's giving up his Irish Secre- 
taryship, Mr Wellesley Pole said to Mr Plumer 
Ward, " It is folly to attempt to be a power in the 
Commons without a party." The part Mr Horsman 
attempts is an exceedingly difficult one. In the 
House of Commons to be a power you must have a 
tail. If you can only answer, as one of Wordsworth's 
heroines, " We are seven," you are of account, and 
leaders of parties will pay to you a deference which 
otherwise you might seek in vain. The faintest ut- 
terances of Lord John Russell, the feeblest jokes of 
Lord Palmerston, the mildest platitudes of Sir John 
Pakington, the fine old Toryism of Mr Bentinck, or 
the extremest views of Mr Bright, are listened to most 
attentively, because the House understands that 
they all speak, not so much individual opinions, as 
those of large parties in the State. A man who sets 
up on his own hook, as it were, insults the amour pro- 
pre of all. De Foe tells us — 

" The only safety of society 
Is that my neighbour 's just as proud as I — 
Has the same will and wit, the same design, 
And his abortive envy ruins mine." 



284 MODERN STATESMEN. 

So it is in tho House of Commons, where such a man 
as Mr Horsman is an eyesore to every one else. Every 
other M.P. feels chagrined by his display. It is an 
assumption of virtue on his part which every one 
resents. Nor can a man hold this position long, how- 
ever honestly he may have originally taken it up. 
Finding himself always alone, he will learn to look on 
men and things with a jaundiced eye. More or less, 
he will become cynical and misanthropical. If he is not 
so, people will think he is ; and even when he is right 
the public will be sure to think that he is wrong. 
" Matthew Lewis," says Tom Moore, " though a 
clever fellow, was a bore of the first description." 
Well, a man, however clever he may be, who is al- 
ways finding fault, is a bore. And if the public sus- 
pects that he is not the best of tempers — that he is 
a little irritable — he stands a very fair chance of being 
sent to Coventry, and very rightly too, for a man of 
such a temperament is never to be depended on. " A 
gentleman of my country," says Montaigne, " who 
was very often tormented with the gout, being impor- 
tuned by his physicians totally to reclaim his appetite 
from all manner of salt meats, was wont presently to 
reply that he must needs have something to quarrel 
with in the extremity of his fits, and that he fancied 
that railing at and cursing one time the Bologna sau- 
sages, and another the dried tongues and the hams, 
was some mitigation to his pain." Possibly this 
ebullition of temper might have been a relief to the 



THE RIGHT HON. E. HORSMAN. 285 

victim of the gout, but surely it was anything but 
pleasant to his friends. We may depend upon it, 
while the fit lasted, no one who could help it went 
near the cursing and swearing invalid. Yet he could 
plead ill-health for his anger. Mr Horsman has no 
such excuse for his. Only this very last session he 
displayed a temper which, however, led to some valu- 
able discoveries where least expected. The Times 
ventured to find fault with Mr Horsman, and what 
did the hon. gentleman do but actually, to a crowded 
House, retailed the story of his wrongs ? Mr Walter, 
M.P. for Berkshire, was to be held personally respon- 
sible. A prepared speech was delivered ; all sorts of 
charges were made against the Times ; it required an 
unusual exertion of the premier to get the House to 
avoid a row, but the public reaped the benefit, as the 
short and sharp debate left on all minds an impression 
that influences were applied to a certain paper, which 
materially accounted for its tone on certain occasions. 
Latterly, Mr Horsman has been a true Ishmaelite, and 
has lifted his hand against every one. Our Indian 
Legislation ; the Reform Bill, which was to have 
been ; the French Treaty, and the Ministerial Budget 
— all have come in for his studied invective and hos- 
tile criticism. I do not say that Mr Horsman has 
forfeited the confidence of his constituents ; and I do 
think his absence from the House of Commons would 
be much to be deplored ; but, if the hon. gentleman 
thought less of self, and more of the public interests ; 



286 MODERN STATESMEN. 

if he would curb that unruly member, the tongue ; if 
he would display a little more courtesy to his oppo- 
nents, he would take that high position to which his 
abilities evidently entitle him to lay claim. 

Mr Horsman sits below the gangway, on the first 
bench on the floor, on the seat where Mr Drummond 
sat. Mr Walter sits by his side, and in the little 
fracas anent the Times, the hon. gentlemen were rather 
too near to be pleasant. Personally, he is a fine-look- 
ing man, in the prime of life, tall, thin, and gentle- 
manly, though certainly not so amiable-looking as 
might be. As a speaker, I am inclined to place him 
in the foremost rank. He does speak. Many of the 
parliamentary orators would cut a wretched figure out 
of doors, and are under lasting obligations to the re- 
porters, who polish their ill-formed sentences, collect 
their straggling remarks, prune away their redund- 
ancies, and actually sometimes succeed in turning their 
nonsense into something like sense. Some mumble so 
that you can scarce hear a word in the gallery, and 
present to a patient House the awkwardest appearance 
possible. It is a charge against our nation that we 
often sacrifice the ornamental ; and certainly many 
M.P.s, when on their legs, are open to this charge. 
Their arms and legs are sorely in their way ; their 
voice is utterly unmanageable. They may have much 
sense and wit, but, like Sir Hudibras, they are shy of 
showing it. You would tremble for your country if 
you really thought these were its most eligible and 



THE RIGHT HON. E. HORSMAN. 287 

wisest men. How they stammer, and hesitate, and re- 
peat themselves ; how they consult their notes, and 
thus cruelly prolong the torture of all around ! If you 
do listen, you find it is but a repetition of what has 
been better said before. Mr Horsman is not of thi's 
class. His style is polished; his command of the 
choicest language extensive ; his voice is clear, and 
his delivery striking and impressive. I should think 
his speeches are carefully and conscientiously pre- 
pared. So far, he respects himself and the House. 
Let me not be understood to hint that his polish is of 
that kind that detracts from strength. Such is by no 
means the case. There are few more vigorous speak- 
ers in the House. His damning drawback, in the 
eyes of certain Radical reformers, is that his opinions 
have become more Conservative than they were form- 
erly. I fear the whole nation is guilty of a similar 
crime. The reaction of the public mind since the 
passing of the Reform Bill, the disappointment it creat- 
ed, the corruption that has grown up under it, the want 
of faith evinced in our public men, the jobs done by 
Pharisees, claiming to be better than the publicans 
and sinners of our political world, the selfish greed 
of the official class, have begotten in all classes of 
the general public an atheism, under the influence 
of which even the most ardent statesmen have had 
to abandon the creeds, and hopes, and visions of an 
earlier day. It ought not so to be in politics. We 
ought to 



288 MODERN STATESMEN. 

"Hold it truth with him who sings 
To one clear harp in divers tones, 
That men may rise on stepping-stones 
Of their dead selves to higher things." 

Mr Horsman's public life commenced at Cocker- 
mouth in 1836, which place he represented in Parlia- 
ment till July, 1852. In June, 1853, he was first 
returned for Stroud without opposition. Stroud is a 
Liberal and Dissenting borough, and there was a time 
when Mr Horsman acquired no small fame as a 
Church reformer. He and the present Lord Llan- 
over were a terror to the Church by night and day, 
and, if a job was done, they were sure to scent it 
out, and drag it to light. As a Commissioner of 
Church Inquiry in Scotland, Mr Horsman saw a 
religious system less pretentious than that of England, 
and certainly quite as effective, for on all sides it is 
admitted the Scotch are quite as religious as the 
English. Mr Horsman's philippics must have tended 
to keep deans and bishops in order, for since the 
Church Establishment has increased in usefulness 
and popularity. Mr Horsman's Scotch parentage 
may have made him look with a suspicious eye on 
prelacy ; at any rate, it was in battle with that he 
won his earliest fame — a fame which he will have to 
work very hard next Session to retain. Mr Horsman 
has reached a critical period in his history ; it behoves 
him to mind what he is about. 



XXVIII. 



THE HON. MR WHITESIDE. 



I cannot understand the use of long sermons, or long 
speeches. I suppose the House of Commons can. 
Eor instance, let us take the Kars debate. Lord Pal- 
merston confessed — what every one knew — that Lord 
Stratford de RedclifFe was very much to blame ; that 
he is an obstinate, irascible old gentleman, with a 
laudable hatred to Russia, and an intense love of 
bullying ; that he fancied he had £7000 a-year for 
the sake of playing the Bashaw on a grand scale ; and 
that it was high time he were ordered home. Why, 
then, for three nights did people keep on reiterating this, 
or making long speeches to which no one listened, and 
repeating points of which every one was convinced ? 
One reason — and the chief one — is this : the House is 
an old-fashioned assembly, and acts according to pre- 
cedent. People made long speeches, and got very 
red in the face, and indulged in pompous declamation, 
and were always plunging the country into a crisis in 

19 



290 MODERN STATESMEN. 

the days of Pitt and Fox, so why should not Britons 
do so now ? are they not Britons ? and " Britons 
never, never, never will be slaves." Unfortunately, 
M.P.s forget the days of Pitt and Fox were the days 
of the slow coaches, when a man was a week or a 
fortnight going from Edinburgh to London, and made 
his will first. These are the days of Hansoms and 
electric telegraphs — of the steam-ships and the railway, 
and the thoughts that shake mankind. 

Again, this is as much a lawyer-ridden as it is a 
priest-ridden country. What the curate — starched, 
lean, and leaden-eyed — is to the weak-minded females 
of Putney and Hampstead, the lawyers are to the rest 
of the House of Commons — a terror by night and a 
plague by day. Unfortunately for the country, al- 
most all our places are given to barristers, and, there- 
fore, the barristers must make speeches, good, bad, 
often — chiefly — indifferent, or they will not get Go- 
vernment places. As they have tongues to sell, they 
must let the Government have a taste of their quality ; 
so the House wastes its time, and the strongest constitu- 
tions give way. Mr John Bright was seriously hurt by 
his parliamentary attendance ; Mr Blackett, one of the 
most promising young men in the House, not long since 
died, ere his prime, thoroughly worn out. Will the 
House never subside into short speeches and common 
sense ? I fear not, so long as the constituencies return 
gentlemen of the long robe. I read somewhere a tale 
of a French opera performer who visited Constantino- 



THE HON. MR WHITESIDE.' 291 

pie, and had the honour of performing before the 
ruler of the Ottomans. With Oriental gravity, the 
Sultan looked and smiled, and made no sign. The 
Frenchman exerted himself to the utmost ; his pir- 
ouetting was extraordinary ; his pas were terrific, if 
not sublime. The performance over, the Sultan beck- 
oned the performer. The latter drew near, expecting 
as the reward of his unparalleled agility, the shawls of 
Cashmere, the silks of Persia, the Jewels of Golcon- 
da, possibly, the revenues of a province. Grave- 
ly smoking his chibouque, said the Sultan, " I have 
seen So-and-so and So-and-so — naming one operatic 
star after another — but I have never yet seen any one 
who perspired as much as you." The tale may be 
mythical; nevertheless, it has a true report. The 
Sultan is the British House of Commons ; the French 
operatic performer is Mr Whiteside. I should ima- 
gine, when he speaks, no one perspires so much as the 
member for the University of Dublin. I am sure he 
ought to do so, for he is the longest and loudest speak- 
er in the House. Lord Palmer ston never said a wit- 
tier thing than when, in the Kars debate, he assured 
the hon. member that all who saw his speech would 
consider it as highly creditable to his physical powers. 
As a party man Mr Whiteside is very useful. Oc- 
casionally, he makes a blunder, as he did in that Kars 
debate, which, after engrossing three nights, ended in 
smoke, and rather aided than damaged the Govern- 
ment ; but I imagine there are few more useful or 
19 * 



292 MODERN STATESMEN. 

reacty gentleman on his side of the House. Some- 
how or other, an Irishman seems naturally a thorn in 
the sides of the Saxon ; and in Ireland party spirit 
exists in a degree of which we on this side of the Irish 
Channel can form no idea. In a parliamentary melee, 
no one is so indispensable as an Irishman ; he lays 
about him thoroughly ; with him, evidently the affair 
is no child's play ; he has an enviable command of 
very expressive adjectives, rendered still more ex- 
pressive by means of his brogue, which, however edu- 
cated he may be, he finds it impossibly utterly to 
shake off; and, as I fear there is a great deal of job- 
bery in Irish politics, he has very often on his side 
the advantage which every man has when he happens 
to be in the right. This fervour is natural and to 
the manner born. Ireland is famed for faction fights, 
and a party is but a faction on a larger scale. How 
fierce and fanatic Irishmen can be we have seen ex- 
emplified in the conduct of the Orangemen to the 
Prince of Wales while in Canada, and in the recent 
meeting of the Religious Propagation Society, at 
Down, when the bishop was almost kicked out of the 
chair and the rector of the parish seated in his place. 
It is in this fervour that we must seek the cause of 
the success of Irishmen in parliament. Sheridan and 
Burke, in the palmy days of parliamentary eloquence, 
are splendid specimens of this ; nor must we forget 
Canning or Grattan, Shiel, or O'Connell, or Plun- 
kett, all names indicative of great oratorical power, 



THE HON. MR WHITESIDE. 293 

and of men who achieved great parliamentary suc- 
cess. An Irish writer tells us that " the fighting age 
in Ireland is from sixteen to sixty/' ' and I may add 
that this is true as far as the House of Commons is 
concerned. It is true we have no Irishmen so young 
as sixteen, but we have them older than sixty, and 
the most ancient of these scents a battle from afar, and 
rushes to it as the war-horse of the book of Job. 

Dod tells me that James Whiteside, son of the late 
Rev. William Whiteside, and brother of the Rev. Dr 
Whiteside, Vicar of Scarborough, was born at Del- 
gany, county of Wicklow, 1806; educated at the 
University of Dublin, where he graduated M.A. with 
honours, and the London University College law 
classes, where he took honours. He was called to 
the bar in Ireland in 1830, and is a Queen's Counsel; 
was Solicitor-General for Ireland from March till De- 
cember, 1852 ; author of works on Italy and ancient 
Rome ; a Conservative in favour of a grant to the 
Church Education Society — rather an obscure defini- 
tion of a man's political opinions ; first returned for 
Enniskillen, April, 1851. But I must point him out in 
the House of Commons. You will see him on the first 
bench of the Opposition, sitting somewhat near the 
end furthest from the Speaker. Of course he is bald. 
In England no man attains distinction until he has 
reached an age when time begins to tell upon the face 
or figure. Our young poets are middle-aged, and our 
rising novelists are compelled to resort to wigs. We 



294 MODERN STATESMEN. 

have young-looking statesmen, but then they are 
lords. We English are wonderfully afraid of talent 
in political life. As much as possible, we fence round 
place and power, and put up "No admittance except 
to the- aristocracy ; " and when a man with brains 
does force his way in, it is generally when he has be- 
come almost worn out in the struggle. The only ex- 
ception is that in favour of lawyers ; as the chances 
are that a lawyer, from the force of habit, becomes 
attached to some party or other, and thus gets a start 
which, if he be clever, he will be sure not to lose. 
Mr Whiteside won his laurels by his defence of 
O'Connell, and, on the strength of that defence, at 
first seemed rather inclined — if I may be allowed such 
a phrase — to ride the high horse. Latterly, however, 
he has assumed less, and gained a respectable posi- 
tion. There was a time when lawyers were the 
champions of popular right, and the dread of all who 
assumed a despotic power. " Who," says Mr Town- 
send, " took the lead in those memorable discussions 
which established the freedom of His Majesty's poor 
Commons, and confirmed a wavering House in their 
resolution, but Sir Edward Coke, Selden, and Lyttle- 
ton ? Who but these great constitutional lawyers 
managed the memorable conference with the Lords 
which preceded the Bill of Rights ? Who drew up 
that Magna Charta but Sergeant, Glanville, and Pym, 
and Hyde ? At the restoration, the cautious wisdom 
of Sir Matthew Hale would have fettered the King 



THE HON. MR WHITESIDE. 295 

with conditions that might have saved his reign from 
alternating between anarchy and despotism. Whose 
voice more loud than that of Maynard, Sawyer, 
Somers, and Williams in denouncing the tyranny of 
James ? — whose suggestions so valuable in establish- 
ing the happy revolution ? Henry IV. on one occa- 
sion called a parliament from which he excluded law- 
yers ; Old Coke tells us, "The prohibition that no 
apprentice or man following the law should be chosen, 
made the parliament fruitless, and never a good law 
passed thereat, and called the Lack-learning Parlia- 
ment." Mr Whiteside does not belong exactly to 
this class. He is undoubtedly too much of a party 
man, and out of his party he will never rise. The 
most nefarious characters — of course, I speak politi- 
cally — in this country are the Irish Orangemen ; men 
whose advent in the Green Isle was a result of victory, 
whose continuance there has been a curse ; who cared 
not that the nation rotted away — that the people 
grew up in heathenism, that the land was ravaged with 
civil war, so long as they grew rampant on the pa- 
tronage and privilege doled out to their class. It is 
not in Ireland as it was ; emigration, cholera, the po- 
tato famine, the Encumbered Estates Court, the 
growth of common sense in the English Cabinet, 
where Ireland is concerned, have somewhat diminish- 
ed the extent and the frightful consequences of what 
was called Protestant ascendancy in the Sister Isle ; 
but the habit of thought engendered by that fierce 



296 MODERN STATESMEN. 

partisanship still lives, and in the person of the Hon. 
James Whiteside still too often finds utterance also, 
in what should he the most enlightened assembly in 
the world. 

As an orator Mr Whiteside seems to have chiefly 
studied Demosthenes' advice as to action, and literal- 
ly to have adopted it. It is all action with him. 
He has his countrymen's great command of language, 
which is the command, as Whately remarks, of a rider 
over his horse when it is running away with him. 
His language is not pregnant with meaning, so as to 
afford delight and instruction when the occasion 
which called it into existence has passed away ; nor 
is it sharp and well defined, so as to hit hard home ; 
nor does he descend to plain, unadorned sense like 
Cobden, or rise into a sublime personality like Dis- 
raeli. He has more the appearance of a lawyer, 
strutting his hour upon the stage, seeking to make 
mountains of hills, to invest the most obscure inci- 
dents with the most important consequences, to keep 
the truth of the question altogether out of sight, and 
to be reckless of everything so that he succeeds in 
making out a case. I fear Mr Whiteside forgets the 
advice of a celebrated countryman. " When I told 
Curran," says Moore, " of the superabundant florid- 
ness of the speech, he said to me, ' My dear Tom, it 
will never do for a man to turn painter merely upon 
the strength of having a pot of colours, unless he 
knows how to lay them on.' " 



XXIX. 



CONCLUSION. 



Eoe. the present, at any rate, our sketches of eminent 
statesmen are over. We have taken pains with them; 
we have endeavoured faithfully to portray the illus- 
trious individuals who have come under our notice, 
and, if we have pleased or instructed our readers, our 
object has been attained. But, before we make our 
bow, we would say a word or two about the individ- 
uals seated on the first bench on the Speaker's right 
— viz. the Treasury bench, the object of so many a 
hard struggle and bitter fight. In the Cabinet are 
the following individuals ; Viscount Palmerston, Et. 
Hon. W. E. Gladstone, Lord John Eussell, Et. Hon. 
Sidney Herbert, Et. Hon. T. Milner Gibson. These 
gentlemen we have already described. Besides the 
Cabinet consists of the Et. Hon. Sir G. C. Lewis, a 
learned man, but a somewhat heavy speaker ; Sir 
Charles Wood, tall and volatile ; Mr E. Cardwell, a 
promising young man in Sir Eobert Peers time — with 



298 MODERN STATESMEN. 

red hair — and a promising young man still ;. Mr Vil- 
liers, a veteran in the cause of Free Trade ; and Sir 
G. Grey, an elderly gentlemar, with a wonderful 
capacity for talking on any subject at any length. 
These gentlemen, with some peers, form the Cabinet. 
The Cabinet, it may be as well to inform our readers, 
consists of the more eminent portion of the Adminis- 
tration, but does not constitute more than a fourth 
part of those whom a change of Ministry deprives of 
office. The Cabinet being more immediately re- 
sponsible for the conduct of public affairs, their de- 
liberations are always considered confidential, and 
kept secret even from their colleagues who are less 
exalted in office. The distinguished individual who 
fills the situation of First Lord of the Treasury is the 
chief of the Ministry, and therefore of the Cabinet ; 
he is usually styled the Premier, or Prime Minister. 
It is at his immediate recommendation that his col- 
leagues are appointed, and, with hardly an exception, 
he dispenses the patronage of the Crown. Every 
Cabinet includes the following high officers : — The 
First Lord of the Treasury, the Lord Chancellor, 
the Lord President of the Council, the Lord Privy 
Seal, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the 
Secretaries of State. But, of course when parlia- 
ment is sitting, all eyes are turned to the Premier. 
" He fills," said Canning, one of our most brilliant 
Premiers, " that station in the House of Commons 
which points out him who holds it as the representa- 



CONCLUSION. 299 

tive of the Government in that House — the possessor 
of the chief confidence of the Crown and of the 
ministers. Its prerogative is, that in all doubtful 
questions — in all questions which have not previously 
been settled in the Cabinet, and which may require 
instant decision, he is to decide, upon instant com- 
munication with his colleagues, sitting by him un- 
doubtedly, if he be courteously inclined ; but he is 
to decide with or without communication with them, 
and with or against their consent." Not of the Cabi- 
net are the remaining gentlemen, seated very often in 
very ungraceful postures, on the Treasury bench. 
There you may see Mr Lowe — with white hair and 
eyes, almost like those of an Albino, but with a very 
impressive and striking aspect, nevertheless ; Mr 
Charles Gilpin — a very Cato in appearance; Lord 
Clarence Paget — a nobleman destined to do the State 
some service ; and Sir Richard Bethell, with his bald 
head and broad frame — the atlas of the Ministry, as 
far as the law is concerned ; a man listened to, in spite 
of his peculiarly precise, and affected, and unpleasant 
way of talking. At present, I can say nothing of 
Mr Atherton, the new Solicitor- General. These gen- 
tlemen do not earn their money easily. They have 
little to be thankful for. In parliament those who re- 
ceive the half-pence are sure to come in for a fair share 
of kicks. 

In taking farewell of the reader I have to express 
my regret that I had proceeded too far in the public- 



300 MODERN STATESMEN. 

ation of my book to be able to omit the sketch of Sir 
Charles Napier when he suddenly died. I see Mr 
Layard tells the Southwark electors Sir Charles was 
a persecuted man. I bow to such an authority, but 
the sketch stands as it was written long, long before 
the gallant old admiral was no more. I have only to say 
as my apology for personal criticisms, that I have taken 
only representative men, and that I have done so in 
the faint hope that, in these days of languid faith, 
by means of personal sketches I may call the at- 
tention of the public to political principles. Man, 
as Plato says, is a political animal; and the worst 
sign of the times is the indifference and sneering- 
scepticism with reference to political matters which 
have laid hold of the public mind — a state which, 
as my readers will have perceived who have followed 
me thus far, is not kindly to the growth of Modern 
Statesmen. 



the END. 



JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PEINTEBS. 






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